NEGATIVE 
NO.  91-80083-11 


MICRO!  ILMED  1992 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES/NEW  YORK 


1^ 


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55 


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NATION.VL  ENDOW  MENT  FOR  THE  HUMANITIES 


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AUTHOR: 


MUNRO,  HUGH  ANDREW 


TITLE: 


FEW  REMARKS  ON  THE 
PRONUNCIATION  OF... 


PLA  CE : 


CAMBRIDGE 

DATE: 

1871 


Restrictions  on  Use: 


Master  Negative  # 
9/  -  S0OS3  -  // 


CX:)!AJMBiA  iiNiXI'KsirV  LUiRAKHiS 

I'RHSHRX'A'fKlN  DEPARTMEN^r 

BliU  lOCRAIMilC  MirROf-OKM  TARCFT 


Ongiuai  Material  as  i-iimed  ^  Lxisling  [bibliographic  Record 


mf-tr-w-T' 


-fT«p~"""'"T<r 


—I  >ii  i«  J  HI*  ■*  I* "  "■«'  * "y 


(119 


877*15 

2  l.lunro,   Iluc^i  rJicIrow  JolmotonG,    1019-1685 

A  few  ren^arks   on  tlio  pronuiiciation  of  Latin,  ■    '■'% 
vilUi  a  poGtccript,   by  H./u  JJ.Iuriro. . .        Cambridge, 
Deichtoii,1071« 

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IMAGE  PL.ACnMHNT:   ..TACIIA^JB     Illi 

DATE      FILMED:     ^  .  /0^_T^     INITIALS 

FILMED  BY:    Rl  SFARC  1 1  PUBLICATIONS,  INC  WOODBRIDGE,  CT 


REDUCTION     RATIO 


JJ 


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Association  for  Information  and  image  Management 

1 1 00  Wayne  Avenue.  Suite  1 1 00 
Silver  Spring,  Maryland  20910 

301/587-8202 


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A    FEW    EEMABKS 


ON 


THE    PUONnNCIATION    OF    l,\TT\ 


f 


WITH    A    POSTSCRIPT 


BY    ^ 


Hf  A^  J?  MUNRO 


.-nT 


FELLOW    OF    TRINITY    COLLEGE 
AND    PROFESSOR   OF   LATIN    IN    THE    UNIVERSITY   OF    CAMBRIDGE 


■^ 


I 


'» 

k 


CAMBRIDGE : 
DEIGHTON,    BELL,    AND    CO. 

LONDON:  BELL  AND  DALDY. 

1871. 


Cambriticje : 


PRINTED    BY    C.    J.    CLAY,    M.  A. 
AT   THE    UNIVEUSITY    PRESS. 


o 

o 

CO 

f 

o 
6 


The  following  Remarks,  privately  distributed   some   months  ago,  I  now 
publish  with  a  postscript,  in  the  endeavour  to  comply  so  for  as  is  in  my 
power  with  the  request  of  the  headmasters  of  schools  who  met  at  Sherborne 
last  year.     To  ensure  complete  uniformity  in  the  pronunciation  of  Latin 
is  an  impossibility:  it  is  a  delusion  to  suppose  that  there  is  a  foreign  as 
opposed  to  an   English  method.     In  England  itself  there  is  no  one  un- 
varying system.     If  the  scheme  which  is  proposed  in  the  Oxford  circular, 
as  finally  revised  by  the  Oxford  Philological  Society,  be  taken  to  represent 
the  minimum  of  change  desirable,  and  some  such  scheme  as  is  sketched  out 
in  the  following  jjages  be  placed  at  the  other  extreme,  the  whole  inter- 
vening ground  might  I  think  be  covered  without  exhibiting  much  greater 
differences  in  practice  than  exist  among  us  at  p^^sent.     At  the  same  time 
it  seems  to  me  desirable  to  endeavour  in  theory  after  a  worthy  ideal ;  and 
the  most  essential  part  of  such  an  endeavour  is  in  my  opinion  to  take  for 
our  standard  the  Italian  vowel  system,  if  even  in  practice  we  should  many 
of  us  fall  short  of  it. 


0* 

o 


< 


1—2 


41^717 


In   discussing   the  pronunciation  of  a  dead  laiirruaoe   It    is   well 
to  remember  'the  shrewd  Sicilian's'  Xu(/>c  Ka\  f.^firaa  airiaTdv.    And 
I  should  probably  have  gone   on   to   the   en!    <>f  mv   life    in    lieincr 
sober  and  mistrustful  in  tln\  matter,  if  it  had  not  been  fonvd   on 
my  attention  from  many  ditierent  quarters  wliirl,    [   cidd   n-t   dis- 
regard.    Nearly  two   years  ago    Mr  Cornish   of  Eton,   m    Li^    uwn 
name   and   that   of  several   of  his   colleagues,   urged   me    to   print 
something   on   the    matter.      For  many  reasons   T   declined  nt    1)1.3 
time  to  enter  on  so  slippery  a  course.     Soon  after  some  friend<  lieie, 
to  whose  judgment  I  could  not  but  defer,  among  them  I)i  LigLtfuut 
and  our  Public  Orator,  pressed  me  to  try  a  reform.     Tims  stimnlnted 
I  gave  some  lectures  on  the  subject  more  than  a  year  ago,  n\v\  .  v,  r 
since   have  continued  in  lecturing  to  adhere  to  the  system  I    ilien 
traced    out.     Last   term    Professor  Palmer  wrote  to  me   that  they 
were  thinking  of  a   reform   at   Oxford:   at   his   request   i   sent    a 
pretty  full  summary  of  the  plan  I  pursued.     This  was  received  with 
very  great  courtesy  by  him   and  the  distinguished  Committee  ap- 
pointed  to  consider  the  matter.      They  w^ere  not  however  mriiu-d 
to  go  so  far  as  I  had  gone;  and  they  have  iince  circulated  a  private 
paper  stating  what  course  they  were  disposed  to  recommend.     It  is 
with  reference  especially  to  this  paper  that   f   jiint  these  remarks. 
Personally   I   should  have  been  disposed  to  bow  at  once  to  such 
high  authority;  but  I  have  been  almost  forced  to  move  for  the  M~ 
lowmg  reasons.     On  the  one  hand  the  Head-Master  of  W'inehester 
wrote  to  me  a  month  ago  to  inform  me  that  'at  a  conference  of 
Schoolmasters   held  at  Sherborne  this  Christmas... ii  was    resolved 
to   ask  the  Latin  Professors   of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  to   issue   a 
joint  scheme  of  Latin  pronunciation,    to  ensure  uniformity  in  any 
changes  contemplated'.     On  the  other  hand  not  only  did    1    •  iiink 
myself,  but  I  found  it  to  be  the  general  opinion  of  those  whom  I 
consulted,  such  as  Dr  Lightfoot,  Mr  John  E.  Mayor,  Mr  Jebb,  ^Ir" 


allowiirjr  the 


G 

tfiai    \\L    might  with  advantage  push  reform  farther  than 
i  pnprr  prn poses.     ^\r  ATayor  says  'I  confess  that  I  would 

rath"  !  k*  t  p  1  >  (lii  existing  pronunciation  than  accept  any  com- 
promise'. Lastly  that  (Hstiiiu'ii-lM-l  -'ii"!:!!'  .-iU'l  -r.-thiiii.-ir'.aii  .Mi  il. 
J.  iluhy  Iia>  pubiishud  a  pa])ur,  in  \siii.'ii  liu  declares  iiimself  in  favour 
of  a  romph-tv'  srliomo  of  icfonn.  it  i-  \vh]\  great  diffidence  there- 
fore that  1  issue  tliese  i-finnrk-,  \'<r  the  -nlc  piirp..,-r  ,. 
(piestions  iiivstlvfd  to  be  con^idiTcd  ;ind  diM-u-.-td. 

I  wish  thfU  to  (h'claru  my  lull  coiicuricucc  iii  the  changes  piu- 
posed  in  the  Oxford  pnpor  and  mv  rcasonq  for  e""!'!'-!'  -^i^  fMi-fln'i-. 
I  hold  that  rofonii,  wlirtlici-  partial  ^r  cnnipiff c.  vh.snM  !„■  nnij.  r- 
taken  f>r  !t>  nww  sake  and  the  sake  of  the  an'i.iii  1  tii-uat'^e,  not 
to  mak'j  uurstdvcs  mor**  rnlulligiidc  Lu  *  uLhcr  Lauii-ic<idiiig  nations*, 
who  aro  iiof  int<']]i<j-ihh'  jo  r-nr-]]  f>f]i'-r  winiout  spec'i.'i]  <-nltivation. 
A  iMtii 'hni  in  -  Litm  is  at  first  as  nnintclligible  t<»  .tn  Italian,  as 
o!i!x  is,  an. I  more  absnr  1  ,  a  Spaniard  cannot  be  understood  by 
]' r.  n«  hijiaii  ui  liduu]  ,  a  Scuichman's  bro^jue,  while  retaininii  some- 
thini;  of  fh(^  prt^pi^^  voAvel  sounds,  has  most  of  our  own  disagreeable 
p*  '  idi  iiiin  >,  i.  uiipleasing  and  l)ut  partially  intelligible  to  us,  and 
cannot  be  unlorstood  hv  Spaniard,  Frenchman  or  ItaHan\ 

Are  \s.j  tliuii  ^aiid  this  is  a  \iUu  ipie^iion)  to  endeavour  to  observe 
(juanfifv  svstoTnatically  to  distinguish  between  long  and  short,  and 
1""-'  ini  h  Ml  r,  syllables?  If  this  is  to  be  done,  we  must  break 
alik'  witii  .ill  existing  pronunciations,  Italian  as  well  as  English. 
'lis  tu miiv  .  f  iho  accent  over  quantity  is  perhaps  more  marked 
i'i  ^^1'  if  ikiin  than  in  our  own  reading  of  Latin.  We  learn  from 
(  icero  an  i  «^>ninMl;;in  that  rhythm  or  a  due  admixture  of  lono-  and 
}^  if  -vJkihk-  \\,i-  important  in  prose  as  well  as  verse;  and  for 
^!'"  'h  '0  <  h><  rving  quantity,  I  seem  to  feel  more  keenly  the  beauty 
ol  (  icero's  style  and  Livy's,  as  well  as  Virgil's  and  TTorace's.  The 
same  T  fin  I  to  be  the  case  with  those  in  whose  judL^ient  and 
kn  v  1  mI^.  1  confide.  Mr  Mayor  writes  to  me:  *As  regards  quantity, 
C.  .1  Shrewsbury,  a  most  experienced  and  intelligent  teacher  of 
elementary  classics,  tells  me  that  since  he  has  made  his  boys  dis- 
tiTiguish   cano,  amis  and  canus,  lego,  legis  and  lex,  Icgis,  and  sound 

'  I  have  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  ordinary  Scotch  method  and  care  for  no 
contradiction  however  flat.  If  in  Edinburgh  or  elsewhere  any  profess  a  superfine 
system^  ac<;eptablo  alilve  to  gods  and  men,  to  Spaniard,  Italian  and  ancient  Roman,  that 
is  |)ot  Scptch,  bwt  s^me  ideal  which  common  mortals  would  fain  attain  to,  but  cannot. 


* 


all  long  syllables  long,  and  short  short,  in  v  liatever  positions,  he  finds 
them  perfect  in  quantity  for  verse  composition'. 
;  Though    we    break   however   with    all    existinir    systems,    iLauan 

appears  to  me  to  offer  many  vahiabic  auls  which   it  wnnld  lio  mn^f 
iinwi^o  to  neglect.     English  seems  so  utterly  dilT.  ivnt  iii  all   its  t.aies, 
its  entire  vocalisation,  from  ..],1  Ikniin,  ijiat  (.ftcn  \\o  cannot  find  in  it 
even  single  sound-  to  give  as  the  representative  of  a   Latin  sound. 
Ilic  Italian  of   liTfratni'c  has  been  tixcd  for  six  ecMtiirirs  ;  tlie  more 
wo  pxamino  thr  twn,  tlir  moro  ^vo  fed  that   tlio  liomano-Tuscan  of 
to-day  is  csm  ntially  the  Latin  of  the  7th  or  Sth  conturv  :   that  'Siede 
^•■i   trrrn   «h.vr  nata  lui  '   must  represent  very  nearly  tin-   7th  century 
pronunciation    oi    'sedet    (il)laterra   deiibi  nata    fni  '  :   that    race    and 
elimate  and    rnncl,    else    have   made   the   Mingua  Toscana   m   bocca 
Ivomana'  to  inherit  in  a  higher  degree  than  any  other  lanu'iao-e  the 
refinements    of   old    Latin.      Let   me   not   be   misuiiderstood  :    i   feel 
most  strongly  the  tintli   ■■•(  I  )r  Ridding's  judicious  words,  wlien   ho 
writes:    'the    point  which    would    be   likely   to    cause    the   greatest 
difficulties,    would    be  very  subtle   distinctions   oi    -h  ties   of   vowel 
sounds.     But  if  any  such   wx^re    proposed,    \\._    ::iiuuld    iia\t    t..   kt 
boys  be  rough   in   it,  and  tlvv  would   be  rough  in   it.     T  f    I    thrro 
is  so  much  to  be  said  in  favour  of  doing  a  thing  as  thoroughly  as 
possible,  that  I  would   say  no   more  than  just   this,   that  a    subtle 
foreign  pronunciation  will  not  be  realized  at  school  I  think'.      \\  hat 
I  mean  is  this:  our  English  sounds  are  so  different  from  vdnt  v>r' 
must  suppose  the  old  Latin  to  have  been,  that,  by  looking  only  to 
them,   we  should  probably  fall  into  such  slipshod  ways  as  t  .  nn ake 
our  new  pronunciation  hardly  better,  perhaps  more  distasteful  liiaii 
our  present.     I  do  not  i)ropose  that  every  one  should  learn   Tta]i m 
in  order  to  learn  Latin.     What  I  would  suggest  i-   tli at   those  who 
know  Italian,   should   make   use  of  their  knowledge  and   should    in 
many  points  take  Italian  sounds  for  the  model  to  be  followed,  that 
those  who  do  not  know   it,   should    try   to    learn    fmm    others    the 
sounds  required,  or  such  an  approximation  to  them  as  may  be  pos- 
sible in  each  case. 

In  seeking  to  recover  in  some  degree  the  old  pronunciation,  we 
have  many  great  advantages  in  Latin,  compared  ^\dth  Greek :  1. 
from  the  literature  developing  itself  comparatively  late,  and  so  not 
stereotyping  the  orthography :  we  see  in  the  first  volume  of  the 
Coi-pus  inscr.  Latin,  a  map  as  it  were  of  the  language  spread  op-  u 


s 


before  us,  and  feel  sure  that  cliauge  of  spelling  meant  systematical 
thaiige  of  pruiiuiiciation  :  coira,  coera,  ciwa;  aiquos,  aequos,  aecus ; 
qiiei(]vo))\fpi(\  qfficKmqite,  etc.  etc. :  2.  from  the  far  less  complexity  of 
soiuul -.  Iijiiih  iius  mostly  disappearing  and  the  two  chief  ones  left, 
ae  and  an,  being  easy  to  pronounce:  3.  from  the  invaluable  service  the 

u-  m  k.:r|»iii_;  liie  accent  lu  most  cases  uii  liie 


1' 


i!!aii>.  ha  V  r  rch'. 


'It 


riglit  syilubiu,  cAt-n  winlf  chafi'j'iTi'j'  it^  Tiatnrc.  IM.-uiv  of  n*^  T  fcnr  are 
(|uit<'  ii]irr)ns(-'!<.u>  of  t!i.'  i\r\>\  \\r  M\\.  tlM^in:  Ihii,  IkmI  we  been  left 
to  our  own  !ight>,  t  ho  coiii'ti -i'Mi  \i\  l.niin  ini-hi  lia\.'  h.'on  as  disas- 
trous as  Hi  dn-ok.  In  ol)-or\  in,;  (|uahni  v  u  c  shall  ^uil  k '■.•!.  tho  acc^juL 
in  its  proper  pkicc,  but  its  tyrnnnioni  proilnminance  v-Hl  ho  nbated. 


At  first  th*'  Latins  seem  to  have  been  careless  enouuh  in  matters 

of  granmiai'  and 


H  •  ■  \   I  I  1  »  '  * 


^'r  MM   fh«    tinieof  1  hi nius  onwards 
-  '  inn   !i  pains  and  attention  to 


j>r>'!!nhoi;tf  ,.ai 
this  nai  i-  ai  nf"  -'fMniinari;!!  ' 
thu.su  UiaLiurs  Liiai  by  tiiu  liha  uf  Cicero  an  1  \  ugil  tiiu  language  had 
nttaino.]  n  ]-m  rf.  (--tion  as  great  as  that  of  Attic  in  its  palmiest  days. 
Tho  -hnring  o\ .  i  .t  jin-J  syllables,  once  its  great  weakness,  had  been 
so  inurh  oarected  bv  careful  culture  that,  n  \  irgil's  antiquarian 
prujLuiicu.^  had  uui  ^loud  ni  i  h.  way,  we  may  infer  fro?n  the  example 
of  Ovid  tliat  rlivir,]!  ..f  long  syllables  an!  many  sliort  ones  would 
^>*>'^'  <«^'i>  '-^^  'h  a}.|M  ncd.  Every  change  in  pronunciation  seems  to 
ha\o  ho.'!!  o.-iivhiMv  ni:iik.-ii  'hv  a  change  in  ihe  spelling.  We  may 
thus  1  ihink  approx miiiLu  lo  liiu  true  i^roimnciation.  This  approxi- 
mntio.n  it  ni  iv  he  said,  will  after  all  be  a  rude  one.  Vuiy  well:  that 
may  be  an  argument  for  doing  nothing  at  all ;  but  not  I  think,  if  we 
try  a  reform,  for  J.ing  it  imperfectly.  With  this  preface  I  will  pro- 
cuud  Lu  siiuw  where  it  seems  to  me  we  might  safely  go  beyond  the 
Oxford    rirrnlnr   in    correcting   our   pronunciation    of  the    different 

i   'f'  '^:    i^h.  r  th  )?   1  will  say  a  few  words  about  quantity,  accent  and 

elisioi!. 

*  a  .^iiuuki  liavu  the  sound  of  a  in  father :  a  that  of  the  first  a  in 
prtpfy\  As  tin  first  a  of  jyajya  would  seem  in  English  mouths  to  be 
sometimes  a  short  a,  sometimes  a  short  /,  sometimes  a  short  u,  and  as 
it  is  well  to  accustom  the  English  to  open  the  mouth  and  expand  the 
chest.  1  w  ui.i  udd;  (;r  still  better,  a  should  have  the  sound  of  the 
accentui  oh  a  of  the  unaccentuated  Italian  a:  amiita,  padre,  pa- 
drone.  <  '  course  a  and  every  short  vowel  should  be  pronounced 
short,  when  the  syllable  in  which  they  occur  is  only  lengthened  by 

pUSitliJli. 


'e  (and  ae)  should  have  the  sound  of  a  in  cake :  e  of  tho  first  (/  u\ 
aerial,'  The  first  a  of  aerial  has  to  my  ear  a  very  vague  sound :  1 
would  add  :  or  better,  let  e  have  the  sound  of  the  Italian  closed  e 
(e):  e,  whether  the  syllable  is  short  or  lengthened  by  position,  and  ca' 
that  of  the  Italian  open  e  (e) :  arena,  ride,  but  bene,  temere  :  est 
Coats'),  but  est  ('is');  lectas  (partic),  but  lectus  ('bed'):  Caesar, 
musae,  Aeaeae.  Thus  in  Italian^  as  a  ride  e' represents  tlio  h)na  h 
represents  the  short  Latin  e ;  while  Latin  ae  is  invariahlj  r*  pi  o>Lniod 
by  e:  Cesare,  s^colo,  etc.  Diez  compares  the  German  lehen,  ^vegen 
for  the  open,  legen,  heben  for  the  close  e.  In  Knglish  perhaps  pear 
will  give  a  notion  of  open,  pain  of  close  e.  In  Italian  hh.  \  d  >  n-t 
distinguish  between  naturally  long  and  short  vowels,  wli-n  tlaj 
syllables  are  long  by  position  ;  but  we  should  do  so  in  Latin  T  flunk  : 
mens,  mentis.  In  Italian  too  the  open  and  close  sounds  are  only  per- 
ceived in  the  accentuated  syllables. 

In  Lucilius'  time  the  rustics  said  Cecilius  pretor  iur  Caecilius 
praetor:  in  two  Samothracian  inscriptions  older  tlian  B.C.  100  ^tho 
sound  of  ac  by  that  time  verging  to  an  open  e),  we  find  rmiste  piei 
and  muste:  in  similar  inscriptions  fjivariu  piei,  and  mystae  :  Paeligni 
is  reproduced  in  Strabo  by  iUXtyvoi:  Cicero,  Virgil,  Festus  and 
Servius  all  alike  give  caestus  for  Kearo^ :  by  the  first  centnrv  i^orlmp^; 
sooner,  e  was  very  frequently  put  for  ae  in  woid-  like  taeter:  we 
often  find  teter,  erumna,  mestus,  presto  and  the  like  :  soon  inscriptions 
and  Mss.  began  pertinaciously  to  offer  ae  for  e  :  praetium,  praeces, 
quaerella,  aegestas  and  the  like,  the  ae  clearly  representing  a  short 
and  very  open  e:  sometimes  it  stands  for  a  long  e,  as  often  in 
plaenus,  the  liquid  before  and  after  making  perhaps  'the  e  more 
open  {(TKr^vr)  is  always  scaena) :  and  it  is  from  this  fonn  plaenus  liua 
in  Italian,  contrary  to  the  usual  law  of  long  Latin  e,  we  have  pi^no 
with  open  e.  With  such  a  pedigree  then,  and  with  the  genuine 
Latin  ae  always  represented  in  Italian  by  open  e,  can  we  hesitate  to 
pronounce  the  ae  with  this  open  e  sound  ? 

'I  should  have  the  sound  of  e  in  he,  i  of  e  in  behalf :  I  mi  lud 
prefer:  l  shall  have  the  sound  of  the  accentuated,  i  of  tho  nna*- 
centuated  Italian  i  :  timidi. 

'o  and  d  should  be  sounded  as  at  present':  in  this  I  cannot 
acquiesce :  what  is  the  present  o  ?  noii,  bos,  pons,  honos  ?  or,  7ios,  hos, 
domos  ?  these  o's  we  English  utter  with  totally  different  sounds :  we 
have  scarcely  in  English  or  in  English-Latin  a  genuine  o,  except  j  .  r^ 


10 

haps  before  r :  roar,  mores :  then  what  is  our  Anglo-Latin  o  ?  how 
does  0  (liff(  r  in  dnnvim.  and  donuml  Here  too  the  close  and  open 
Italian  o  represent  respectively  the  long  and  short  Latin  o,  on  the 
exact  analogy  of  e.  Let  us  then  represent  o  by  the  close,  o  by  the 
upLii  luilian  u  :  the  name  of  the  painter  Benozzo  Gozzoli  gives  a 
specimen  of  tho  two  o's.  Or  1  care  not  if  we  take  the  long  and  short 
CiTinati  M  :  r./me,  (j<^>lil :  H'r  '^wv  jn;rp...se.  Here  too  az*  has  a  curious 
a!la^^^\  wirji  dr  :  ih,'  Liiiti  nu  becomes  in  Italian  'prn  o:  bro,  hde  :  I 
wuiild  jjiuiiuuiicc  LliU^  in  Laliu  ;  phsfnnn,  Clhdius,  corns,  i'uiliap.^ 
to<j  the  fact  flint  ffJaria,  viftorin  and  iiic  roinnion  tormi  Tint  ion  -orio 
have  ill  Italian  thr  njM'n  -*,  mi-ln  >!n'\\  ihai  thy  corrcsj)oinhn-  r;  '\u 
Latin  was  (>|Mn  hy  coming  iMiwt.n  \_\\n  litpiids,  <i  t)efore  one: 
cuhipai'c  plciiits  above. 

'  v7  slionld  liavo  the  sonrid  nf  o  in  mlio,  v  of  u  in  fruition* :  or,  of 
accentuated  aii'l  imarcontuated  Italian  u  respectively:  tumulo,  tumulto. 
For  thit  1  argre  class  of  wor<ls,  comprisinor  all  superlatives  an  1  many 
otliur  kind.^  ul'  iiuiui.^  and  ui  \uiij.-,  (^uiiiLiliaii  <:^i,  i,  8)  gives  a  valuable 
hint  :  •  th(  ro  is  a  middle  sound  between  u  and  ?' ;  for  we  do  not  pro- 
ii'tune.   ojifn/ucm  [pptumum)  either  as  optimum^  or  as  optumumJ 

' au  shonl  1  have  the  sound  of  oio  in  owl';  I  should  prefer  the 
Italian  an  wiiicli  gives  more  of  the  u,  than  our  owl,  cow. 

' eu  slmiild  be  sounded  as  at  present':  for  Greek  words,  adopted 
into  Latm,  let  Greek  authorities  tell  us  what  is  right :  of  Latin  words 
there  are  In  two  or  three,  heu,  ceu,  sen:  I  prefer  the  Italian  eu  which 
gives  yuLL  more  of  the  e,  than  the  English  you  sound  of  these  words 
does  :  '  m'  as  we  in  we' :  here  too  in  Latin  we  have  but  two  or  three 
s  n  1  d  1  \\ .  !  d  < ,  cut,  hui,  phui,  huic. 

'oe  shoul  1  h  iv.  I  he  sound  of  a  in  cake':  here  too  (putting  Greek 
^^■ui\h  out  of  the  question),  when  hateful  barbarisms  like  coehivi, 
coena,  moestus  are  eliminated,  oe  occurs  very  rarely  in  Latin:  coepi, 
poena,  moenia,  coetus,  proelia,  besides  archaisms  coera,  moerns  etc., 
where  oe,  coming  from  oi,  passed  into  u.  If  we  must  have  a  simple 
soun  i,  1  should  take  the  open  e  sound  which  I  have  given  to  ae: 
but  I  should  prefer  one  like  the  German  o.  Their  rarity  however 
makes  the  sound  of  oe,  eu,  ui  of  less  importance. 

'  ei  should  have  the  sound  of  i  in  idle':  surely  this  cannot  be  right. 
V>\\\  this  too"  is  a  diphthong  which  has  practically  disappeared  from 
Latin,  owing  to  the  people's  dislike  to  complex  sounds:  we  find  hei 
(more  correctly  ei):   ei  (dat.)  and  rei  are  sometimes  monosyllables, 


I' 

I'! 

If, 


h  ^ 


/ 


and  Horace  has  Pompei,  Voltei,  Virgil  Fenei.    But  in  the  older  lan- 
guage there  are  thousands  of  ei's,  later  i  or  e:  surely  we  are  not  to 
pronounce  all  these  with  the  English  i  sound,  in  dofianrp  aliko  of 
euphony  and  consistency.     I  should  infinitely  prefer  eiih.  i-  the  Latin 
and   Italian  long  e,  or  long  i;    i.e.  to  pronounce  ojiiiieis  either  as 
omnes  or  omnis.     But  as  the  diphthong  is  inip..iLani,  i  wuuLi  nmcl! 
rather  give  it   ihu  iLaiian  or  Latin  e  sonnrl   qnirklv  f. Unwed   liv   an 
ItaliaT)  or  Latin  i  sound.     Then  there  is  an  jnipuiant  da^s  ..t  words 
"^  ^''lii'li  ?b<'  nvfnrd  paper  takes  n.>  note:  are  we  to  -iN-.-  the  Kn-]i>h 
t  sound  to  such  forms  as  eius,  Pompeias,  Setanas^     And  here  I  will 
luke  together  a  large  elass  of  similar  wnrd^  in   ai,  ei,  oi,  ui,  whirli 
have  really  two  z's,  a  voAvel  and  a  consonant,  and   which  in  njd  times 
were    often   so    uiiiten,   as   we   see    in    inscriptions    and   oood    .M^s.  : 
Quintilian  tells  us  that  Cicero  preteired  -11110  J/a/e/z/enio  o-eminata 
i  scribere';  and  we  know  fiY^m  Prisrian  that  Caesar  in  jn's  d('  anal..^ia 
spelt  PoDipeiii  (gen.)   with   three  2's,  and  explained  ho\v  they  were 
.'til   u,  be  pronouncedi       \\\>  English  shew  in  these  words  our  usual 
undaunted  inconsistency:  we  say  JIluu  bui  major,  Graius  but  Troja, 
eju6  buL  Pompeiiis;  Seius,  while  we  call  his  -011   Sejanvs.     In   ^m  h 
words  the  z  has  a  double  force,  that  of  the  vowel  together  with  tliat 
of  the  consonant  i  (our   y):    the  Greeks    always   write    llo^7r7,KOs\ 
not    UofiTreio^.      In  all  these  cases  I  conclude  we  shcnld   give    the 
long  Latin  or  Italian  a,  e,  i  sound  respectively,  followed  by  an  En- 
glish y  or  Italian  j  sound:    Gra-yus,  Ma-ya,  ma-yor,   Tro-ya  (this 
word  has  the  open  0  sound  in  Italian),  e-yus,  Pompe-yus,  Be-yanus, 
cu-yus.     So  with  the  compounds  of  iacio:  e-yicit,  db-yicit,   re-yicit', 
though  we  should  always  write  them  with  a  single  i:  eicit  etc. :  Gams 
is  a  dactyl,  Gains  a  nonentity.     The  0  or  e  of  proin,  proinde,  prout, 
dein,  deiyide,  when  not  forming  a  distinct  syllable,  is  elided,  does  not 
form  a  diphthong,  and  must  be  treated  as  cases  of  elision  Ijctween 
two  words:  in  iieUtiquam  e  is  elided  as  mmli  a<  in  nurnquam,  nullus: 
the  Greek  eu  and  yi  I  refuse  to  pronounce  upon. 

We  come  now  to  consonants:  the  Oxford  paper  proposes  that  the 
consonant  i,  or  j,  should  have  the  sound  oi  y  m  yard:  that  consonant 
u,  or  V,  should  be  sounded  as  at  present.  That  we  should  sound 
consonant  i  as  our  y  I  am  quite  agreed :  equally  persuaded  am  I  that 
we  should  give  consonant  u  the  nearest  sound  possible  to  the  vowel 
u,  the  sound  that  is  of  our  English  w.  This  I  hold  to  be  called  for 
by  the  whole  inner  structure  of  the  language:  comp.  iuvenis,  iunior; 

1—4 


* 


I 


12 

noverat,  norat\  motus,  momen,  mintms,  nundinae,  etc.  etc.:  by  the  fact 
that  the  Greeks  employed  their  ov  to  form  words  whicli  must  liave 
})eei!   uHtTly  l)arbaroiis  to  their  ears,  in  order  to  reproduce  precisely 

lliu  Kuiii;ui  MJiuid-..  OL-i.\//ry,  dhovevTo^,  and  many  others  even  more 
rpinil<iv(  :  lastly  by  clear  external  evidence.  Gellius  is  fond  of  quot- 
in  '  Cicero's  friend  Ni^^idius  Fimilus,  next  to  Varro  the  most  learned 
of  tlie  Iloiiinns,     Ki> u    the  passage  about  the  vowels  cited  by  Gellius 

uL  Uiu  end  oi  hi.-,  Jiuh  Look  seems  Lu  luc  Lo  shew  that  the  consonant 

?/  in    VnJerius,  etc.  had  the  sani-^  rnlnti.-Ti  to  tlie  vowel,  as  the  i  of 

» 

iecui'y  etc.  had  to  the  vowel  i;  an' I  liin  in  l",i]i  cases  they  were  as 
near  to  the  vowel  sound  n-  iht^y  couM  v\.!l  be.  Still  more  con- 
vmcinL;  is  liii'  eiaiuiis  passage  m  x  i:  luiless  vos  was  SQunded  woSj 
tlip  vtr.rv  would  ■<(^n^^.  to  linvn  nn  x^^^v^\  or  meaning.  Now  Gellius 
quoting  I'i-nhis  covers  the  whole  classical  period.  Why  should  we 
then  renounce  the  advantage  we  have  over  others  in  our  lo,  surely 
a  nobler  sound,  to  us  at  least,  than  v1 

The  circular  shrinks  from  giving  c  and  g  uniformly  the  sound  of 
h  and  hard  g\  and  leaves  ci  and  ti  (and  ?  si)  before  another  vowel  to 
be  sounded  as  at  present.  As  for  special  reasons  I  have  spoken  of 
these  points  so  fully  in  an  Appendix,  I  will  only  say  that,  since  keUy 
kin,  get,  give  are  such  genuine  English  sounds,  I  see  no  reason  for 
not  allowing  them  in  Latin,  and  many  reasons  for  the  contrary;  and 
that  our  rxishios,  fashiams  and  the  like  are  hardly  compatible  with  a 
reformed  system. 

The  circular  does  not  touch  on  other  consonants :  I  wish  to  make 
a  few  remarks  on  some  of  them:  hs,  ht  should  always  be  sounded, 
generally  written,  ps,  pt:  lapsus,  aps,  apsens,  apstulit,  Araps,  urps, 
opscenus,  optulit,  supter:  and  generally  assimilation  should  take  place 
in  pronunciation,  if  not  in  spelling;  ace-,  not  adc-,  imm-,  imp-, 
coll-  etc. 

d  and  t  we  treat  with  our  usual  slovenliness,  and  force  them  up  to 
the  roof  of  our  mouth:  we  should  make  them  real  dentals,  as  no 
doubt  the  Konians  made  them,  and  then  we  see  how  readily  ad  at, 
apud  apiit,  illud  Hint  and  the  like  interchange :  f  seems  from  what 
(^fiuntilian  says  to  have  been  sounded  with  a  stronger  breath  than 
wo  ohipioy;  L)UL  i  suggest  uo  change:  m  before  q  had  a  nasal  sound: 
quaynquayyi,  numqiiam:  final  m  was  sounded  slightly  and  indistinctly, 
as  I  -  proved  by  its  elision  and  the  testimony  of  grammarians :  qiiu 


i 


13 

I  avoid,  pronouncing  cu  or  qioo:  cum  or  quom,  ecus  or  eqiios:  r  v\e 
should  sound  more  strongly  and  distinctly  than  we  do  at  ])]'  -ent. 

Of  5  I  would  say  a  few  words,  as  it  has  many  interesting  analogies 
in  Italian:  s  between  two  vowels  has  in  Italian  aij  1  I'l  in  h  a  soft 
z  sound  like  our  rose:  I  would  thus  sound  it  between  two  vowols  m 
Latin:  7'osa,  viusa,  miser.  But  Avords  of  tlii^  Ixin.]  inl.Mtin  are  cuni- 
paratively  very  few,  and  in  Italim  there  are  most  suggestive  excep- 
tions to  .9  being  soft  between  two  vowels:  ni  cosa,  riso,  etc.  and 
in  lIio  adjective  ternnnaiiiai  -u.-^u  \l  is  sounded  as  uui-  s  in  .^ml :  tlicse 
words  represent  causa  [caussa),  risus  {i^issus),  exanijiles  of  tliat  very 


lar^re  class   of 


o 


.^]b.■l, 


Quintiiiin 


•20 


sjh'aks 


lie  tells  us  tliat 


Cicero  and  Vir-il  wrote  cassus,  caussae,  divissiones.  There  arc  \ast 
numbers  of  such  words,  in  which  ss  was  the  original  spelling,  a  lost 
consonant  having  been  assimilated,  and  the  vowel  was  alwa3^s  long. 
The  old  Latin  pronunciation  seems  to  have  been  to  dwell  on  the  long 
vowel  or  diphthong,  and  sound  the  ss  as  a  single  sharp  s,  as  iii  the 
Italian  words  quoted:  cau-ssa,  cd-ssus,  ml-sit  {mi-ssit),  ml-ssus, 
iu-ssus,  ru-sum  (ru-ssum)  for  ryrsum,  odJo-sus  {-ssus)  etc.  etc.:  the 
ss  and  s  seem  to  have  been  sounded  alike.  At  the  beorinnin2[  and  end 
of  words  too,  and  at  the  beginning  of  syllables,  and  before  consonants, 
s  is  always  sharp  in  Italian,  and  should  be  so  in  Latin:  sol,  stella, 
de-sero,  ni-si,  quasi,  hos,  nos,  sonus. 

There  are  5  letters  or  unions  of  letters  wholly  alien  to  the  old 
language  and  brought  into  it  for  the  sole  purpose  of  reproducing 
precisely  Greek  sounds:  ?/,  z,  ch,  pli,  th:  we  have  abundant  evidence 
that  ?/,  or  Greek  v,  had  some  sound  between  i  and  u,  probably  like 
either  French  u  or  German  it;  and  one  of  tliese  sounds  I  should  wish 
to  give  it.  Of  2;  I  do  not  feel  competent  to  speak.  The  modern 
Greeks  sound  6,  cj)  as  we  do,  ;^  like  a  strong  Scotch  guttural :  in  old 
Greek  and  Latin  it  seems  to  be  generally  agreed  that  the  tenues 
c,  J),  t  were  distinctly  sounded  and  an  h  sound  appended.  I  should 
not  venture  to  suggest  such  a  pronunciation  for  Latin  ph  and  th;  but 
should  prefer  it  for  ch,  as  this  would  not  be  a  difficult  sound,  and 
the  Scotch  or  German  ^uttural  is  strano^e  to  the  EnHisli  tonofue. 

gn  was  sounded  as  we  sound  it,  not  as  the  Italians  and  French 
pronounce  it.  Though  I  do  not  propose  to  change  the  sound  of  71 
before  c  and  g:  anceps,  aiigo  and  the  like;  it  seems  to  have  been 
nasal,  nearer  a  g  sound,  and  many  grammarians  wished  to  write 
agceps,  aggo,  aggulus,  as  the  Greeks  actually  did  for  similar  reasons: 


I  ill 

i 


)  ^ 


ayytX. 


14 

ty^parr}';]  though  oddly  enough  both  ItaUans  and  modern 
Greeks  ha\     here  a  clear  ii  sound. 

hi  modern  Latin  pronunciation  quantity  is  systematically  neg- 
lected: attention  to  it  seems  to  me  essential  in  any  reformed 
method,  attention  too  to  the  iiiiiural  length  of  vowels  when  long  by 
posit  in  Jn  T^itin  there  is  no  tj  or  ov  Tjicilius  unluckily  for  us 
111 \  i II _:  L I u u  1 1 .  i  1  out  of  fashion  tlie  poet  Accius'  invention  for  noting 
nuLLirLdly  lun^  syllables  by  donMinu  ihnn.  though  \\'-  iind  inahv 
traces  of  this  in  tlic  oldci*  iiisrii  |.!  ioii.>;  Jlaui'cu,^,  ^^cfao^/u/xo";  ^o  ee  for 
e,  J  tor  7.  as  vlximus  as  well  a-  vivo:  ou  f  ^r  "  ns  pouhlicom.  Apices 
were  often  usrd  afterwai'd-  m   all  ages  to  innrk  ii.itui-.-dlv  L-iig  sylla- 


e 


bles:  MdrtL.s,  j'<'rtrU\  Im a h  !  iiese  usages  are  noted  1)\  n-nm  iliaii.  W 
knnw  too  tliat  tlio  vowol  of  flic  snpino  and  ooi^iuito  parts  of  the  verb 
\va>  n\\\:\\^  l^ng  by  nature,  il'  t  lie  vowel  of  iIh'  lovsent  indie,  tlinugh 
vhat  was  i-l  lowed  by  a  medial:  aactus,  leectus  {])iiYtic.),h\xt  factus, 
Lctas  ^.-Libst.):  Cicero  (Orator  §  159)  tells  us  also  that  every  vowel 
wla  n  fnllfuvod  hv  ns  or  vf  bornnic  long  by  nature:  Insanus,  Infelix, 
but  indoctus:  coonsuevit,  coonfecit,  but  composuit  And  this  is  borne 
i>\\\  by  abundant  other  evidence:  we  find  in  Greek  KXrjfjL})^  \\\r)/ji€v- 
T(K\  OvaXijis  Oi'uXti'Tu^  and  ilaj  like.  Priscian  too  (ii  G3)  tells  us 
th.ii  '7"  nml.  fli.^  preceding  vowel  long  by  nature:  reegnum,  staag- 
num,  ben Lj mis,  mallgnus,  ahieegnus,  pnvlgnus:  and  this  is  confirmed 
by  nm  iiiidin-  in  inscriptions  more  than  once  the  apex  of  a  naturally 
long  vowel  attaciiud  lo  regni,  regnOy  and  also  signu,  digni,  and  in 
Greek  the  form  'Vny^'^^i-  ^^''"  must  not  be  misled  by  the  wrong  accents 
MapKo^  !'■(  M,"p/vf*<,  Mayro<;  for  ^!  77i'09,  there  being  conclusive  testi- 
mony for  th«  1  n.ili  a  the  vowel.  The  rhythm  of  prose  as  well  as 
verse  will  be  improved,  if  we  attend  to  such  p.nuts:  amaans  ainaan- 
tis,  doceens  doceentis,  legeens  audieens,  but  legentis  audientis;  amaan- 
dus,  doceendas,  but  legendus,  audiendus:  Moonstrum  horreendum 
Informe  ingeens:  Insontem  Tnfaandoo  indicioo,  and  the  like.  An 
extruded  consonant  too  often  leaves  a  naturally  short  vowel  long : 
eXy  ee\  sex,  seescenti,  seemis;  Sextius,  Seestius  {aijaricoBiaTepov  nihil 
novi) ;  ees,  eest  from  edo.  By  comparing  Cicero  (de  orat.  ill  §  183) 
with  QuintiUan  (l,  5,  18)  we  learn  that  in  the  time  of  the  former  the 
prose  pronunciation  was  illtuSy  unius,  etc.:  in  the  time  of  the  latter 
illlus,  unlus,  ho  and  subsequent  grammarians  holding  the  shorten- 
ing to  be  a  poetical  licence. 

Plautus  and  Terence,  following  the  usage  of  common  life,  never 


h*^ 


15 

lengthen  a  short  vowel  before  a  mute  and  liquid  :  compare  on  this 
point  Aristophanes  with  Euripides,  Euripides  with  lb m.  i  :  and  in 
prose  we  should  always  keep  such  syllables  short.  \\  ixcu  iu  the 
learned  verse  such  syllables  are  lengthened,  we  should  still  sonnd 
the  vowel  short,  and  lengthen  the  syllable  by  separating  distinctly 
the  two  consonants :  Gnatum  ante  ora  patris,  pat-rem :  Ju  Lycum 
nJg-ris  oculis  lugroqve:  similis  volucri,  nunc  vera  voluc-ris, 

'i'hc  Italians,  as  I  hnvr  nlrondv  olisrrvod.  linvo  dono  ns  an  in- 
calculable service  by  keepmg  m  most  cases  the  accent  on  thu  riglit 
syll.dilc.  though  the  loss  of  quantity  lias  clian^vd  its  nature.  Jt 
woidd  be  well  tu  recai  tlie  accent  to  the  right  ])lace  in  the  cases 
vl: 


ere    Avo    now    Ti02:lect    to    f]o 


to    (b'aw    it    forward    towards 


enclitics:  arniuque,  omnidve  as  w<ll  as  ciintsque ;  tcDt'iuc;  to  jjro- 
nounce  tanton,  posthdc,  postSa,  jyraeterea,  adeo  (adw),  qniprLiiiLis 
abdris,  inter se,  apudmest,  etc. 

Tn  respect  of  elision  T  wmdd  only  say  tliat,  by  comparina'  Plantn.s 
with  «>\id,  vv.  may  see  how  much  the  elaborate  ciiltivati<»ri  .t  the 
language  had  tended  to  a  more  distinct  sounding  of  final  syllab.K-. ; 
and  that  but  for  Virgil's  powerful  iuliuence  the  elision  oi  h'W^ 
vowels  would  l^nve  almost  ceased.  Clearly  we  must  not  altogether 
pass  over  the  elided  vowel  or  syll.  in  m,  except  perhaps  in  the 
case  of  e  in  common  word.s,  que,  neque  and  the  like. 

In  conclusiuii  1  wuuid  repeat  that,  li  we  are  to  refurm  ^nv  jao- 
nunciation  at  all,  it  would  be  well  to  do  it  as  tla»!  'Uulilv  a>  wo 
can,  and  get  rid  of  as  many  of  our  Sliiljboleths  as  possible;  :ind 
would  suggest  that  exact  uniformity  ibn  -  not  exist  among  us  nuw, 
aa^l  liued  iiuL  be  luuked  uijuii  as  indispensable  in  a  reiurmed  system. 
At  ;ii!  ovents  ' libera vi  nnimam  moarn '. 


i\ 


16 


APPENDIX. 

An  article  wliicli  has  just  appeared  in  the  Academy  of  Feb.  1/5  by  Mr  Max 
Miiller,  '  on  the  pronunciation  of  c  before  e,  i,  ?/,  ae,  eu,  oe\  and  is  argued 
out  wkh  his  usual  power,  will  help  no  doubt  to  make  innovation  more 
difficult  here.     His  chief  objection  to  change  would  seem  to  be  the  same 
as  that  urged  in  the  Oxford  circular,  that  it  could  not  '  be  attempted  with- 
out intolerable  offence  to  the  ears  of  all  the  Latin-reading  nations'.     He 
speaks  of 'fear  of  ridicule',   *  a  dislike  of  the  harcih  and  disagreeable  sound 
of  s\ich  words  as  Kikero,  fakit\     This  difficulty  has  never  struck  me  as  of 
such  very  great  weight;  and  my  ear  has  already  accustomed  itself  to  look 
on  Kikero^  skelus,  sk'io  and   the  like  as  even  more  euphonious  than  their 
former  sounds.     Of  course  I  assume  that  Sisero,  Sesar,  SrphaluSj  sinic  and 
the  like  are  still  to  be  English  for  the  new  Kikero,  Kaesar^  hjnkus,  just  as 
much  as  for  KtKepwi/,  Kato-ap,  Ke^aXo9^  kvvik6%.     Our  present  English  pro- 
nunciation of  Latin  appears  to  afford  some  arguments  to  the  j^oint.     Some 
centuries  ago  we  pronounced  with  the  rest  of  Europe   (I  assume  now  the 
new  and  corrected  sound  of  the  vowels)  cana^  cam  and  the  like,  as  kana^ 
kara:  when  the  revolution  took  place  in  our  vowel  sounds,  we  said  kena^ 
kera^  not  sena^  sera.     Now  that  we  propose  to  reform  our  vowel  sounds  in 
cena^  cera,  why  should  we  find  kenay  kera  more  offensive  than  sena,  sera  1 
Our  English  k  is  common  before  all  vowels  alike  and  such  consonants  as 
it  can  precede  in  Latin,  and  is  at  least  as  euphonious  as  s  or  tch:  kettle  and 
kin  are  not  less  mellifluous  than  settle  and  sin :    Kikero  I  prefer  to  Tchi- 
tchero;  and  I    doubt  whether  Kikero  is  to    an   Italian    more   offensive    or 
strange  than  Sisero,  as  they  too  have  abundant  k  (ch)  sounds  before  e  and 
i.     Assuredly  the  many  Greek  words  like  Cilicia^  Cihyra^  scena,  cithara, 
Cithaeron  I  would  rather  have  with  theii-  Greek  than  their  Latin  sounds. 

Quite  the  same  is  my  experience  with  the  very  numerous  cases  of  -ci, 
-si, -ti  before  another  vowel:  vicies,  visio,  vitium;  species,  spatium,  ratio, 
gratia,  solacium.  Habit  here  too  is  all-powerful,  whichever  direction  it 
takes.  The  common  English  pronunciation  of  Greek  words  like  Avo-ta? 
is  I  believe  Avshta?,  TleAoTrovi'Tyshto/,  MiATysluot  and  the  like,  though  custom 
seems  to  permit  a  more  correct  sounding  of  the  a.  The  pronunciation 
of  the  oldest  Greek  scholars  within  my  recollection,  such  as  the  late  Bishop 
Butler  and    Mr  George  Burgess,  proved  that  some  generations  ago  Greek 


»> 


u 


Hi 


^ 


r 


17 

was  in  mairy  points  sounded  more  like  Latin  than  it  is  now.  Bishop 
Blom field  was  fond  of  telling  an  anecdote  about  a  Freshman  examined  by 
Porson.  The  Freshman  talked  of  yScXsluoi/ :  Porson  intimated  a  preference 
for  /3eX-Ttov.  The  Freshman  politely  allow  ud  the  Professor  to  please  him- 
self; but  had  all  his  life  been  accustomed  to  helshion  and  intended  ic)  stirk 
to  it.  I  think  it  not  very  unlikely  that  before  his  degree  he  became 
reconciled  to  piXnov,  and  that  if  the  will  were  present,  it  would  take  us 
less  time  to  exchange  rayshio  for  ratio,  speeshiees  for  sjjekies. 

Nay  if  we  keep  within  the  limits  of  the  Oxford  pa2:>er,  we  shall  be 
forced  to  many  awkward  inconsistencies.  Suppose  we  are  comparing  the 
successive  forms  of  words  which  we  see  collected  in  the  first  volume  of  the 
new  Corpus  Inscript,  such  as  coii^a,  coera,  cura ;  Cailius  and  Caelius; 
Coilius  and  Coelius,  Caicilius  and  Caeciliiis,  we  must  pronounce  Koira, 
sera,  kura ;  Kailius  and  Selius  ;  Koilius  and  Selius ;  Kaisilius  and  Sesilius. 
The  more  ancient  pvlcer  and  Gracci  will  be  pulser  and  Graksi,  the  more 
lecent  pulcher  and  Gracchi  will  be  pulker  and  Grakki:  co'epi  and  coepi 
will  be  ko'epi  and  sepi.  And  so  with  an  indefinite  number  of  terminations  : 
haca  and  hacae  will  be  haka  and  hasae,  siccus  and  sicci  will  be  sikkus  and 
siksi.  Long-suffering  as  we  are  oil  such  points  with  our  present  system, 
a  partially  improved  method  would  perhaps  render  them  intolerable.  The 
Italian  shuns  such  inconsistencies  by  substituting  ch  ( =  k)  for  c :  secco, 
secchi,  and  lungo,  lunghe. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  our  improved  y  sound  of  j  will  not  by  contrast 
make  such  inconsistencies  appear  even  more  flagrant.  Habit  lets  us 
acquiesce  in  our  English  w^ay  of  j^i'onouncing  such  words  as  ioci,  iugi, 
coniugibus  SLiid  the  like:  but  will  not  yosi,  yuji;  conyujibus  be  somewhat 
uncouth  ?  The  Italians  practically  reverse  this  process,  and  give  our  j 
sound  to  the  consonantal  i  and  our  k  and  hard  g  sound  to  the  c  and  g,  by 
writing  giuochi,  gioghi.  This  gi  in  fact  is  the  almost  universal  substitute 
for  the  Latin  j,  aiutare  (adiutare)  being  quite  exceptional. 

But  though  to  my  present  feeling  to  reform  the  pronunciation  of  j  for 
instance  and  leave  that  of  c  unchanged  w^ould  almost  be  worse  than  to  do 
nothing,  the  important  point  is  to  know  what  is  right  or  probably  right. 
However  firmly  one  may  have  held  the  common  belief  that  the  sound  of  the 
Latin  c  was  in  all  cases  the  same  as  k  or  our  k,  the  fact  of  such  an  autho- 
rity as  Mr  Max  Miiller  calling  it  in  question,  must  make  one  hesitate. 
Still  a  variety  of  considerations  compels  me  to  retain  my  former  belief. 

He  points  out  with  much  force  that  it  does  not  follow,  because  Greeks 
and  others  in  transferring  Latin  words  into  their  own  language  always 
represented  c  by  k,  that  therefore  the  sound  of  the  two  letters  was  always 
identical.     And  yet  the  fact  that  Greek  and  barbarian,  Goth  and  German 

1—5 


I- 


] 


Jf 


18 

alike,  do  reproduce  the  Latin  c  by  k  is  such  a  prima  facie  argument  of 
identity  or  near  resemblance,  that  strong  counter  evidence  is  needed  to 
rebut  it.  Halm's  Grammar  and  Dictionary  shew  that  the  Albanian  has 
sounds  representing  most  of  the  modern  corruptions  of  the  Latin  c,  such  as 
various  cr  and  f  sounds.  The  cice7',  which  must  have  been  imported  into 
those  countries  in  early  times,  perhaps  by  Atticus  on  his  farm  at  Buthrotum, 
is  represented  by  KytKyepe:  this  y  (or  Germany)  sound  being  exceedingly 
common  in  Albanian  before  all  vowels,  a  and  o  as  well  as  c  and  i.  Now 
when  I  think  of  the  Greek  KtKepojv  and  then  of  his  own  eponymous  cicer 
re})roduced  on  one  side  by  the  Albanian  KyiKytpc  and  on  the  other  by  the 
German  klcher,  each  of  these  languages  shewing  only  the  first  and  to  them 
most  natural  deviation  from  the  pure  k  sound,  the  concentrated  force  of 
the  three  impresses  me  strongly'. 

For  the  Greeks,  though  indeed  they  did  represent  /by  </>,  took  much 
pains  to  reproduce  the  most  peculiar  Latin  sounds.  How  trying  must  it 
have  been  to  the  eyes  and  ears  of  a  Greek — unless  he  wished  to  laugh  at 
the  barbarians — to  find  in  his  Polybius  Iloo-Tov/xios  'FrjyovXo^  (Postiimius 
Regiilus),  in  his  Cassius  Dion  OvovXroypvov  (Vulturni),  in  his  Dionysius 
OuoAovo-Ktos  (Volscius),  in  his  Ptolemy  VvipoveSpovfx,  and  the  like.  If  the 
Latin  -ce  and  -ci  had  anything  of  an  s  sound,  why  could  not  the  Greeks 
represent  them  by  some  combination  of  $  or  f  or  cr,  such  as  were  used  in 
Byzantine  times  1  The  Greeks  would  probably  have  given  to  these  sounds 
some  conventional  meaning,  as  to  those  odd  accumulations  of  ov :  nor  do 
I  think  they  would  have  cared  for  the  quantity  of  such  barbarous  words; 
or,  if  they  had  cared  for  it,  would  have  hesitated  to  change  it.  Indeed  any 
consideration  of  quantity  seems  to  me  to  a])ply  with  tenfold  force  to  the 
supposition  of  an  s  added  to  the  k  sound  in  Latin,  so  long  as  quantity  was 
regarded,  or  to  the  Italian  tch,  which  surely  must  have  been  anterior  to  the 
English  or  French  s  sound. 

Yet  more  weighty  to  my  mind  is  the  fact  that  the  Romans  in  all  cases 
expressed  k  by  c.  In  old  times  they  could  only  reproduce  Greek  words  in 
the  rudest  way;  but  for  several  generations  this  nation  of  philologers 
expended  vast  energy  in  overcoming  this  difficulty.  For  this  purpose  they 
introduced  no  less  than  five  *  diacritical'  letters  or  combinations  of  letters, 

1  It  strikes  me  as  improbable  that  Ulfilas,  after  years  of  intercourse  with  Eoman 
dignitaries  in  Constantinople  during  its  early  days,  and  living  with  his  flock  in  the 
midst  of  Latin-speaking  nations,  should  have  his  got  Latin  words  through  any  ♦  Greek 
transliteration';  and,  as  to  the  form  aivaggeU,  surely  although  in  modern  Greek  77 
and  in  Italian  ng  are  alike  sounded  as  ng,  the  very  fact  that  the  Greeks  put  7  for  v  and 
that  some  of  the  best  Roman  Grammarians  wished  to  write  in  Latin  aggulus,  aggens, 
iggerunt  and  the  like,  prove  that  it  was  different  in  ancient  times. 


41  ill 

I 
) 


„r 


I 


'■I 


19 

y,  5f,  cJiy  ph,  th,  in  order  to  reproduce  wdth  the  nicest  accuracy  every  Greek 
sound;  and  schooled  their  tongue  to  utter  words  which  once  were  most 
strange  to  them.  At  first  content  with  Teses,  they  finally  brought  them- 
selves to  adopt  TJieseus,  a  sound  and  intonation  most  alien  to  a  Roman 
ear.  Long  satisfied  with  Saguntum,  with  sejmncs  or  sepirm,  hicinus  or 
licinus,  they  came  at  last  to  Zacynthus,  zephyriis,  lychnus,  containing  each 
of  them  three  letters  or  combinations  of  letters  utterly  foreign  to^them. 
So  that  at  length  they  learnt  to  revel  in  such  sweet  sounds  as  Anthem,  and 
Mnestheus,  and  Actias  Oreithyia. 

Why  then,  when  they  had  got  to  Cepheus,  Cephalus,  Chalcis,  cUh>ra 
and  the  like,  if  c  was  not  exactly  equivalent  to  k,  did  they  not  adopt  here 
too  a  '  diacritical '  letter  ?  One  was  at  hand,  more  ready  for  use  than  any 
of  the  five  adopted,  their  own  k,  now  lying  idle,  with  only  an  antiquarian 
value  before  a  in  a  few  words  or  symbols  of  words.  And  on  this  point  the 
dekemhres  of  no.  844  of  the  Corpus  inscr.  vol.  I  seems  to  have  some  bearing. 
This  is  one  of  nearly  200  short,  plebeian,  often  half-barbarous  very  old 
inscriptions  on  a  collection  of  ollae.  The  k  before  e  or  any  letter  except  a 
is  solecistic,  just  as  in  no.  831  is  the  c.  instead  of  k.  for  calenclas.  From 
this  I  would  infer  that,  as  in  the  latter  the  writer  saw  no  difierence  between 
c  and  k,  so  to  the  writer  of  the  former  k  was  the  same  as  c  before  e. 
Perhaps  keri  tells  the  same  tale,  if,  as  Mommsen  assumes,  it  be  the  geni- 
tive of  cerus  (creator). 

The  following  too  appears  to  me  to  have  no  small  significance.      In 
Cicero's  time  from  an  abuse  of  Greek  fashions  the  aspirate  was  permanently 
attached  to  a  few  Latin  words.     Cicero  tells  us  (Orator  §  160)  that  till  late 
in  life  he  had  persisted  in  saying  pulcros,  Cetegos,  triumpos,  Cartagimm-, 
but  after  a  hard  struggle  e\dl  habit  and  public  opinion  forced  him  to  insert 
the  h  in   these  words.     It  appears  now  from  inscriptions  and  QuintHian 
(i,  5,  20)  that  this  h,  which  in  some  words  was  permanent,  in   others  not 
was  attached  to  c  alike  before  a,  o,  u  and  e,  ^:  in  the  1st  vol.  of  the  Corpus 
inscr.    we   find    Volchacia   and  Achilio  (Acilio);    often  Fulcher,  but   also 
Fulcer.     We  have  Gracchus  and  Graccus,  GraccUs  and  Graccis  :  Quintilian 
refers  to  what  he  calls  Catullus'  'nobile  epigramma'   Chommoda  dicehat, 
and  says  that   some  inscriptions   still  extant  have   choronae  chenturiones 
praechones.     It  is  I  believe  generally  allowed  that  the  ancient  sound   of 
6,  (t>,  X  was  that  of  the  tenuis  with  a  distinct  h  sound  attached  to  it.     Pnt 
even  conceding  that  ch  was  like  the  modern  Greek  or  Scotch  or  German 
guttural,  in  either  case  I  do  not  well  see  how  the  aspirate  could  have  been 
attached  to  the  c,  if  c  had  not  a  k  sound,  or  how  in  this  case  c  before  e  or  i 
could  have  differed  from  c  before  a,  0,  u. 

And  finally,  what  is  to  me  most  convincing  of  all,  1  do  not  vw  ]]  m  .lor- 


1^ 


20 

ijtand  liow  in  a  people  of  Grammarians,  where  for  700  years  from  Ennius 
to   Priscian    the  most  distinguished  writers   were   also   the  most  minute 
philologers,  not  one,  so  far  as  we  kno^-,  should  have  hinted  at  any  difference, 
if  such  existed :  neither  Ennius,  Accius  or  Lucilius,  the  three  greatest  of 
the  early  poets  j  nor  Cicero,  Varro  or  Ctesar;  nor  Pliny  or  Quintilian,  nor 
Gellius,  Charisius,  Donatus,   Servius  or  Priscian.     Lucilius  devoted  whole 
books  to  such  slight  matters  as  the  use  of  fervit  or  fervet ;  i  or  ei  in  termi- 
nations.    Cicero  in  his  Orator  and  elsewhere  dwells  on  what  seem  to  us 
very   trivial   minutiae.      Varro  asserted  that  lact  was  rif^ht,    lac  wronir; 
Cajsar  in  his  '  de  analogia',  addressed  to  Cicero,  maintained  that  Varro  and 
lact  were  both  wrong,  lac  alone  right.     He  told  Cicero  that  the  genitive  of 
their  common  friend  Pompeiius'  name  ought  to  have  three  H^  and  explained 
how  they  v.- ere  to  be  pronounced ;  but  seems  to  have  said  nothing  of  the 
^'s  in  Cicero.     Quintilian  tells  us  how  to  pronounce  the  i  of  ojnimus,  the 
final  e  of  here,  and  much  else  of  an   equally  important  nature.     And  all 
know  that  Gellius,  Servius,  Priscian  and  the  rest  are  brimful  from  first 
to  last  of  the  most  insignificant  details  :    but  of  a  soft  c  not  one  syllable. 

Nay,  what  is  even  more  to  the  point,  Priscian  relates  at  length  how 
Pliny  heard  three  different  sounds  of  ^:  an  'exilis  sonus'  as  in  ille:  a 
'plenus'  as  in  sol:  a'medius'  as  in  lectus.  So  Priscian  himself  finds 
the  n  of  nomen  to  be  *  plenior ',  that  of  annis  to  be  *  exilior '  j  and  not  only 
is  there  a  difference  in  final  m,  but  the  m  of  marjnus  ^apertum  sonat',  the 
m  of  umhra  '  mediocre  \  Of  c  ovhl  ypv,  singular  indeed  if  its  sound  differed 
perceptibly  before  different  letters ;  for  surely  the  distinctions  in  the  letters 
just  enunlerated  cannot  have  been  so  very  great. 

Quite  as  little  classical  authority  can  I  find  for  our  strange  confusion 
of  sounds  in  many  classes  of  words,  important  from  their  great  number,  as 
they  happen  to  occur  in  so  many  common  inflexions :  I  speak  of  ce,  ci,  se, 
si,  ti,  coming  before  another  vowel,  to  all  of  which  we  give  the  same  Hebraic 
^eAshioi/  sound:    iaceam,  placeo,  iacies,  faciunt,  coiulicio;  nausea,  caesius 
divido',  ratio,  gratia,  retia,  otivjn,  indiUiae,  etc.   etc.     The  modern  confu- 
sion of  sounds  here  comes  I  believe  not  from  classical  times,  but  from  the 
'colluvies  gentium'  which  met  together  on   the   breaking   up  of  the  old 
world.     Mr  Muller  sajs   Corssen    has    'proved    (p.    5i)    that    from    about 
200  A.D.  words  with  ti  began  to  be  spelt  with  ci     How  was  that  possible  1 
if  ci  was  always  pronounced  ki,  then  assibilated  ti  could  never  have  been 
written  ci'     The  'never'  is  surely  too  much:  Ribbeck  in  his  prolegomena 
to  Virgil,  p.  241,  gives  dozens  of  instances  where  one  or  other  of  his  capital 
Mss.  writes  c  for  ^  or  ^  for  c;  such  as  ac  for  at,  tetera  for  cetera,  tumulos 
for  cunmlos,  etquis  for  ecquis,  in  none  of  which  can  the  two  letters  hav  e 
had  the  least  similarity  of  sound.     But  he  gives  not  a  single  instance  of 


iff 


il 


I 


21 

confusion  in  a  capital  Ms.  between  the  ci  and  ti  in  question:  thes<    ^F  s. 
write  without   fail  dicio,  solacia,    fades,  proditio,  seditio,   ratio,  spatium. 
And  yet  almost  every  line  of  Latin  offers  opportunities  for  blundering  on 
this  point.     When  we  consider  this,  the  half-dozen  instances  in   Corssen 
seem  quite  inadequate  to  prove  confusion  between  ci  and  ti.     For  there  are 
but  six  which  have  even  a  prima  facie  look  of  sufficiency :  the  most  pro- 
mising of  these  is  renunciationem  from  a  Poman  inscrij^tion  of  a.d.  '2\  \. 
But  when  we  examine  its  pedigree,  we   find  that  Orelli  copies  it  from 
Reinesius'    collection    'quibus   nihil    imperfectius  vitiosiusque  extet,'  says 
Lie.   Gronovius:  'ipse  lapides   nullos  viderat,'  says  another  scholar:   'who 
exceeds  all  bounds  in  saxa  violentius  grassando,'  says  a  third.     When  we 
remember  then   that   in    Reinesius'  time  remmciatio  was  the  recognised 
spelling,  that  one  instance  after  another  of  conditio  for  example  vanishes 
when  it  can  be  put  to  the  test,  surely  the  chances  are  a  hundred  to  one 
that  the  c  is  due  to  Reinesius  or  some  previous  transcriber,  not  to  the  old 
Roman  chiseller.     Two  more  of  unknown  age  are  due  to  old  copies  taken 
when  ocio  at  least  was  a  received  spelling:  two   more  are   published   by 
Renier  from  a  copy  taken  by  a  French  officer  at  Medjana  in  Africa,  Africa 
great  mother  of  barbarisms  and  heresies.     The  Gth  has  an  unquestionable 
voucher:  Mommsen's  inscr.  reg.  Neap.  109  has  disposicionem.   It  was  copied 
at   Salerno;  but  it  must  be  late  and  is  very  barbarous,  containing  also 
rivocaverit,    distituta,  jwpidusqiiae,    an   unmeaning   suetad,  the   language 
being  in  part  unintelligible.     Had  Corssen  applied  his  vast  industry  to 
post- classical  times,  he  might  have  collected  without  effort   100,000   clear 
instances   of  the   confusion  in  question,   the    only  reason   with   many   ap- 
parently for  writing  racio,  spaciurn,  faties,  speties  being  that  the  spelling 
was  wrong.     We  still  see  some  relics  of  this  barbarism  of  the  middle  a^^es 
in  coruUtio,  solatium,  novitius,  tribunitius,  nuncius,  and  the  like\ 

We  have  however  late  classical  authority  of  the  5th  century  for  a  cor- 
ruption of  ^i  (not  ci) :  Servius  tells  us  that  medius  was  pronounced  medsius, 
something  like  the  Italian  mezzo  \  Pompeius,  probably  of  the  same  age, 
informs  us  that  it  is  a  fault  to  say  Titius,  not  Titsius.  If  therefore  we 
prefer  the  5th  century  to  the  age  of  Cicero  and  Quintilian,  we  should  say, 
not  Tishius,  llorashius,  but  Titzius,  Horatzius :  but  then  to  be  consistent 
we  should  also  say  medzius,  commodzius.  From  the  strange  emphasis  with 
which  Pompeius  asserts  that  Titsius  is  right,  Titius  wrong,  I  should  infer 

^  The  supposed  concupiscenciae  for  concupiscentiae  in  an  acrosticli  of  the  African 
Commodian,  a  comparatively  early,  but  very  barbarous  writer,  vanishes,  when  it  is 
Been  that  the  sense  and  context  require  Turn  (or,  Tu)  vigila  for  Cum  vigiJas.  This 
correction  which  I  made  myself  many  years  ago,  has  been  made  by  Haupt  in  a  recent 
number  of  the  Hermes. 


22 

that  this  was  a  new  fashion;  and  that  laiktio  represented  to  Ulfilas  the 
sound  of  lectio  in  his  day,  while  kautsjogSLve  the  sound  oi  cautio  in  the  year 
551.  In  Servius'  time  the  natural  feeling  for  quantity  was  utterly  gone: 
1!  111.]  t.,  I),  learnt  as  artificially  as  it  is  learnt  now.  But  in  earlier  classical 
^''>^*^  "  "^i  pronunciations  were  out  of  the  question.  Indeed  if  we  are  to 
observe  quantity,  whicli  many  of  us  think  a  vital  part  of  reform,  I  hardly 
kiiusv  iiuw  with  any  of  the  modern  fashions  of  pronouncing  we  are  properly 
to  enunciate  ratio  and  Horatius,  fades  and  solacimu, 

Tkinitt  College  :  February  1871. 


■I 


POSTSCIM 


The  preceding  Remarks  were  privately  circulated  some  months  ago 
among  the  masters  of  schools,  the  members  of  the  Universities  and 
others  who  I  thought  had  a  right  to  be  con^uitcd,  m  nnirht  feel  an 
interest  in  the  points  discussed.     I  now  publish  thim  wiih  tin'  pre- 
sent supplement  for  more  reasons  than  one.     1)  i ring  tin    months  of 
February,  March,  April,  May  and  June  of  this  year  several  questions 
concerning  pronunciation  were  argued  at  length  in  the  pages  c^f  the 
Academy,  by  myself  and  others.     Again  our  distinguished  scholar 
and  historian,  the  Dean  of  Ely,  wrote  a  paper  in  the  Contemporary^ 
for  April  on  'the  classical  pronunciation  of  Latin'.     :\ii  Uoby  too  has* 
recently  published  his  Latin  Grammar  in  which  the  sounds  of  the 
language  have  been  treated  of  very  fully  and  very  ably.     Tii  most 
points  I  am  happy  to  say  we  are  entirely  agreed:  on  the  few  in  which 
we  differ  I  will  take  this  opportunity  of  saying  something.     Whether 
the  headmasters  of  schools  have  acted  wisely  in  raising  the  question  of 
pronunciation  at  all,  I  am  unable  to  decide.     As  I  said  in  the  Aca- 
demy, it  may  be  better  to  do  nothing:  the  spectre  of  Greek  is  ever 
before  my  eyes.     It  seems  unreasonable  to  reform  our  Latin  piu- 
nunciation  and  leave  our  Greek  unchanged.     And  I  for  one  know 
not  what  to  do  with  the  latter  and  its  avenging  accent.     If  however 
we  are  to  change,  I  am  for  as  complete  a  change  as  possible.     1 1 .  this 
I  am  glad  to  have  the  support  not  only  of  Mr  Roby  but  of  Mr  J. 
Rh;^s  in  his  very  valuable  letter,  printed  in  the  Academy  of  '\I:f\  1 
in  which  he  shews  what  may  be  gained  for  Latin  pronunciation  from 
the  Welsh.     'In  the  Oxford  circular'  he  says  'it  is  proposed  to  make 
only  a  minimum  of  change  in  the  present  pronunciation  ui  liiu  Laiii 
vowels.     This  seems  to  be  treating  the  present  fashion  with  too  much 
tenderness:  if  indeed  a  change  be  desirable,  let  it  be  an  adequate 
one '.     Few  of  the  headmasters  and  others  to  whom  I  sent  my  Re- 


'  24 

marks,  have  told  me  what  their  views  and  wishes  are.  Yet  most  of 
those  iiuiii  whom  I  have  heard  appear  to  be  in  fawur  of  a  complete 
rliange.  Mr  Grignon  of  Felstead  for  example  tells  me  that  he  and 
his  boys  alike  find  a  complete  more  easy  and  agreeable  than  a  partial 
change;  and  Mr  Farrar  of  Marlborough  does  not  think  it  more  diffi- 
cuiu  Let  us  try  our  utmost,  we  shall  at  best  be  far  enough  from 
perfection. 

One  of  the  questions  discussed  at  greatest  length  in  the  Academy 
was  whether  consonant  u  was  to  be  sounded  like  EnoHsh  lu  or  EnMish 
V.     The  sole  champion  of  the  v  was  Prof  Kobinson  Ellis,  who  argued 
the  point  at  great  length  and  with  a  zeal  which  far  outstripped  his 
discretion.     So  far  as  I,  or  any  one  else  whom  I  have  consulted,  can 
see,  his  premisses  had  little  or  no  bearing  on  the  real  questions  at 
issue,  and  his  conclusions  as  little  concern  with  his  premisses.     Thus 
w^hen  I   liad    quoted   Gellius  in  p.   9   of  my  Remarks  to  shew   that 
Cicero's  friend  Nigidius  Figulus  pronounced   vos  as  wods,  he  retorts 
upon  me  that  the  passage  on  the  contrary  is  in  favour  of  a  v  sound, 
and  clinclies  his  retort  by  the  dictum  of  a  later  grammarian  '  V  ore 
constricto  labrisque  prominulis  exhibetur'.     The  grammarian  is  really 
telling  us  by  what  position  of  the   mouth  and  lips  we  are  to  pro- 
nounce the  voiuelu:    if  Mr  Ellis   does  not  feel  the  humour  of  this, 
then  surely  his  sense  of  the  ludicrous  is  undeveloped.     I  regret  to 
speak  thus  of  a  learned  brother  Professor;  but  clearly  this  is  a  case 
of  afZ(l)OLu  ovTOLv  (piXocv  K.T.X.  and   Mr  Ellis  ought  in  charity  to  re- 
member the  thankless  labour  he  has  imposed  on  me  and  others.     Let 
me   again   refer  to    the   elaborate    exposition    of  this   question    by 
Mr  Roby  in  p.  xxxii— XLII  of  his  grammar ;    and  quote   from  the 
Academy  some  words  of  my  own :  I   cannot  help  inferring  from  the 
hideously  barbarous  forms  in  which  the  older  Greek  writers  express 
Latin  words,  that  ov  came  near  to  the  sound  of  consonant  u  and  that 
Cassius  Dion  for  instance  could  precisely  reproduce  aduentus  only  by 
dhovevro^ :  that  /3  on  the  other  hand  was  a  substitute  like  the  </>  fjr 
/,  or  the  Italian  and  French  gu  or  g  for  the  old  Teutonic  w.     But 
even  in  French  we  find  ouest  for   west,  and   Italian    and    Spanish 
guai,  French  oiiais,  whether  they  come  from  Latin  vae  or  an  older 
form  of  German  7veh,  as  well  as  guastare  and  gater,  which  they  would 
seem  to  have  caught  up  from  their  Teuton  masters  before  the  w 
sound  of  vastare  had  passed  into  the  Romance  v,  all  tell  the   same 
tale.     This  is  well  illustrated   by   what    Mr  Rh^^s   tells   us   in   his 


m 


25 

most  important  letter  referred  to  above:  Latin  words  beginning 
with  V  begin  with  gw  in  Welsh :  Giuener  =  Vener-is,  gwenwyn 
=  venemnn,  g wain  =  vagina,  giuaiul  =  vallum.  But  in  words  taken 
from  English  initial  v  is  represented  by  h  or  in:  thus  we  have  man- 
tais,  menter,  milain,  herf,  etc.  from  vantage,  venture,  villain,  verb,  etc. 
Now  Welsh  is  especially  valuable  here,  when  we  consider  the  period 
\\  ithin  which  such  words  must  have  been  borrowed  from  the  Romans. 
Mr  Ellis  greatly  darkened  counsel  by  his  uncritical  treatment  of 
the  confusion  which  finally  took  place  in  many  words  between  h  and 
consonant  u.  After  exposing  this  at  length  I  thus  summed  up: 
neither  the  old  Greeks  nor  Romans,  I  believe,  had  our  and  the 
Romance  v  sound:  h  and  consonant  u  were  kept  quite  distinct  in  the 
best  classical  period.  Perhaps  towards  the  end  of  the  second  century, 
when  many  other  symptoms  of  decay  began  to  shew  themselves  in 
the  language,  a  lazy  confusion  of  the  two  crept  into  the  utterance 
of  many  words.  But  amavi  was  pronounced  amai  before  the  v  got 
its  present  Italian  sound,  which  was  not  fully  developed  till  post- 
classical  times.  We  sliall  thus  I  think  best  account  for  Italian 
amai  =  amavi,  as  well  as  amavo  =  amabam;  for  ho  hai  ha  ebhi  =  habeo 
habes  habet  habui,  as  well  as  avevo  =  habeham,  etc.  The  early  cor- 
ruptions of  laborai  and  the  like  for  laboravi,  etc.  seem  to  postulate 
a  quasi  iv  pronunciation  of  consonant  u, 

I  will  now  refer  to  the  few  points  in  which  there  is  a  serious 
difference  of  opinion  between  Mr  Roby  and  myself  He  has  become 
somewhat  more  favourable  to  Italian ;  w^e  are  agreed  now  about  e  and 
o;  but  differ  somewhat  as  to  e,  ae  and  o.  At  present  I  will  only 
say  that  I  do  not  know  how  the  facts  I  have  briefly  touched  upon 
in  page  9,  connecting  old  Latin  with  modern  Italian,  can  be  looked 
upon  as  of  slight  moment  in  the  discussion  :  surely  on  such  slippery- 
ground  one  fact  is  worth  a  hundred  theoretical  considerations.  Every- 
day I  feel  more  and  more  certain  that  no  consistent  reform  can  be 
carried  out,  unless  we  look  up  to  the  Italian  vowel  system  as  an 
ideal  to  be  aimed  at,  if  it  cannot  be  always  attained.  As  I  said  in 
the  Academy,  if  any  change  is  made,  be  it  gre^t  or  small,  I  am 
convinced  that  the  mainstay  of  an  efficient  reform  is  the  adoption 
essentially  of  the  Italian  vowel  system :  it  combines  beauty,  firmness 
and  precision  in  a  degree  not  equalled  by  any  other  system  of  which 
I  have  any  knowledge.  The  little  ragged  boys  in  the  streets  of 
Rome  and  Florence  enunciate  their  vowels  in  a  style  of  which  princes 


26 


27 


iiiigiit   be   }.i  -ud.     :Nuxt   to   liiti  Italian  I  would   acquiesce   in   the 
Gennnn  vowel  system.    The  Scotch  is  to  me  disagreeable,  the  French 


alinu^r    h|,jirr< 


i  I  I  S 


M  lloby  asserts  that  'the  Italian  has  sprung  not 
ir  111  tlio  cultivated  language,  but  from  one  or  more  rustic  provincial 
dialects',  that  '  Italian  is  not  the  child  of  classical  Latin,  but  of  one 
or  more  unsubdued  dialects'.  I  on  the  other  hand  hold  it  to  be 
d.  in.iistrable  that  the  Romano-Tuscan  is  the  child  of  cultivated 
Latin,  falling  to  pieces,  and  caught  up  and  subdued  by  German 
mouths.  With  reference  to  the  Latin  I  and  u  as  represented  by 
Italian  close  e  and  o,  to  wliich  Vi:  Tloby  applies  this  theory  of 
dialects,  I  would  call  attention  to  an  interesting  article  which  has 
juM  a|>peared  in  the  iiurmes,  on  Roman  names  in  Greek  inscriptions 
and  literature.  It  is  there  shewn  that  the  oldest  inscriptions  and 
writers  continually  represent  Latin  I  by  e,  that  for  instance  the  name 
Tiberius  is  habitually  reproduced  by  TeySe/9to9,  until  Tiberius'  acces- 
sion to  the  empire  officially  decided  its  spelling  in  Greek.  This  will 
explain  the  connexion  of  Tevere,fede  and  the  Hke  with  Tiberis,  fides 
etc.  far  more  simply  than  'one  or  more  rustic  dialects'. 

To  come  to  5:  Mv  lloby  and  I  differ  with  regard  to  the  compara- 
tively few  cases  in  which  s,  not  representing  a  real  ss,  comes  between 
two  vowels.     But  here  too  I  would  appeal  to  the  interesting  analo- 
gies in  Italian  to  which  I  refer  in  p.  13.     The  Italian  too  is  strongly 
supported  by  late  Greek:  we  find  Kaaao<;  (casus),  Kovpioaao^  (curiosus), 
^afiwaaa  (famosa),    i^Kovaararo^;   (excusatus),    i^KovaaareveLv  (excu- 
sare)  and  the  like.     What  is  the  meaning  of  tliis  aa,  if  there  was 
no  difference    between   the  s  of  casus  (cassus)  and  casa,  of  rdsus 
(rossus)  and  rosa  ?     i  quite  agree  with  Mr  Roby  that  in  the  case  of 
ns  which  always  made  the  preceding  vowel  long,  the  n  was  almost  or 
quite  mute  and  the  s  sharp:  comp.  7)^  =  ens,  toties  =  totiens :  Varro 
and  Pliny  tell  us  through  Charisius  that  frons  =fros,  /runs  =frus : 
formonsiis  too  =  formdssus  =  formdsus,  all   three   being   pronounced 
alike.     The  case  is  much  the  same  with  prorsum  prdssum  prdsum, 
rursum  russum  rilsum,  and  similar  forms. 

Only  one  other  point  have  I  to  contest  with  Mr  Roby,  one  which 
however  I  did  not  expect  to  have  to  contest.  In  p.  LXXiii  he  writes 
'Mi  Munro  takes  Priscian's  statement  (n  63)  that  the  vowel  before 
gn  was  always  long,  as  meaning  that  the  gn  makes  it  long  by  nature'. 
But  I  would  ask  how  I  could  possibly  take  his  statement  as  meaning 
anything  else,  when  after  an  elaborate  explanation  of  the  long  vowel 


■»^ 


of  adjectives  of  places  in  -Inus  and  -amis,  ho  tlms  continues:  gnus 
quoque  vel  gna  vel  gjium  terminantia  longam  habent  vocalem  paeniil- 
timam,  ut  regnum  stdgnum  bemgnus  mallgnus   abiegnus  privlgnus 
Paellgmis.      Priscian   distinguished    most  carefully  vowrl^   Innj  bv 
nature,  and  short  vowels   which  had  position:    thus,  elsewhere   he 
draws  conclusions  from  the  short  i  oi firmus,  virgo  and  vix.     M.\   R.  i  v 
and  I  are  I  believe  pretty  well  agreed  as  to  the  general  liiLiu^  of 
Priscian ;  that  for  his  age  he  was  a  very  learned  man ;  but  that  age 
was  the  6th  century.      Of  necessity  therefore  he  was  wholly  de- 
pendent on  older  authorities  for  all  that  he  tells  us  worth  know- 
ing, and  when  he  trusts  to  himself,   he  falls  into  imbecihty.     It  is 
absolutely  certain  then  that  the  passage  in  question  comes  directly 
or  indirectly  from  some  old  and  good  authority;  since  we  can  see 
from  the  loose  gossip  of  Gellius  that  even  in  his  day  the  most  learned 
men  were  losing  the  instinctive  feeling  for  the  natural  length  of 
vowels  which  had  position  ;  certain  I  repeat  that  it  is  servilely  copied 
in  fact  from  some  one  like  Varro,  or  Verrius  Flaccus,  or  Valerius 
Probus,  one  who  had  the  same  indisputable  right  to  speak  on  such 
points,  as  Cicero  has  when  he  tells  us  that  the  in  of  insanus  and 
infimus  is  long,  of  inclitus  short  by  nature.     Surely  without  Cicero 
this  would  seem  at  least  as  improbable,  as  that  the  vowel  before  gn 
is  long  by  nature  in  ignarus,  cognitus,  etc. 

How  could  Priscian  of  himself  know  anything  of  what  he  here 
tells  us  ?     But  Mr  Roby  says  he  cannot  agree  with  me  and  thinks 
Priscian  unsupported  in  his  statement :  '  Priscian  on  his  principles 
could  come  to  no  other  conclusion ;  for  he  held  that  gn  began  the 
final  syllable  and  that  gn  made  a  preceding  syllable  common,  i.e. 
allowed  a  short  vowel  to  remain  short  (l  11,  Ti  10^      Hence  finding 
all  words  which  ended  in  gnus  had  the  penultimate  long,  he  con- 
cluded the  voiuel  must  be  long'.     And  surely  in  all  this  Priscian  is 
quite  right,  and  his  statement  may  be  supported  by  a  variety  of 
arguments:  gn  did  allow  in  Latin  a  short  vowel  to  remain  short 
before  it,  and  yet  in  every  Latin  word  the  vowel  is  inflexibly  long 
by  nature :  si-gnum,  tl-gnum,  i-gnotus,  co-gnatus,  etc.  etc.  the  g  and  n 
being  locked  in  one  another,  and  the  vowel  rendered  long  by  nature; 
just  as  in  the  very  similar  instance  of  ns  we  find  toties  =  totiens, 
K\TJfirj<;  =  Clemens,   and   again  and  again   in  old  Latin  cosol,  cesor, 
cosentiont,  cdstanti  and  the  like ;  while  before  all  other  consonants 
except  gn  and  ns  the  con  or  com  remains  short  by  nature  and  does 


28 

not  lose  its  consonant :  thus  we  have  congredior,  congliitino  (as  well 
as  ingredlory  ingluvies  and  the  like),  never  cogr^edior,  etc. ;  while  with 
gn  not  only  do  we  find  co-gnitus,  co-gnatus,  as  well  as  i-giiotus  etc., 
but  the  g  too  is  absorbed  and  disappears  in  co-nexus,  co-nitor,  co- 
iiuhium^  co-niveOy  the  double  n  in  all  these  words  being  a  gross 
and  admitted  solecism.  The  con  remains  short  I  repeat  before  all 
other  consonants ;  for  not  oidy  have  we  c6  before  vowels,  but  Con- 
sentius  tells  us  (p.  400  Keil)  the  curious  fact  that  Lucilius,  dropping 
per  metaplasniuni  one  r,  says  ore  corupto.  And,  though  formerly  I 
was  biassed  by  the  authority  of  Lachmann,  I  now  feel  no  doubt  that 
his  MSS.  are  quite  right  in  giving  to  Lucretius  (vi  1135)  natura 
coriiptum. 

Why  I  dwelt  on  this  point  in  my  paper  was    mainly  in  conse- 
quence  of  Corssen's  note  (ii  p.  2G5)    where   he   assails    Hermann 
and  Ritschl's  irrefragable  dictum  that  the    old    scenic    poets    never 
allow  a  mute  and    liquid  to  give    position  to  a  short  vowel:    they 
always  have  lugri,  Idhruni  and  the  like,  while  the  hexameter  poets 
much  prefer  to  lengthen  these  syllables  when  the  mute  is  a  medial. 
He  quotes  a  great  number  of  these  words  in  which  he  says  a  short 
vowel  is  lengthened  by  Plautus  and  Terence  before  gn.     And  indeed, 
just  as  the  vowel  should   be  short  in  insanus,  consul,  sapiens   and 
the  like,  but  for  this  peculiar  power  of  ns;  so  should  it  be  short  in 
ignarus,  ignotus  etc.  but  for  this  cognate  power  of  gn:  also  in  sig- 
num,  tignum  etc.  as  shewn  by  sigillum,  tigillum  etc.     In  adopting  the 
Greek  KVKvoi;,  UpoKvr}  Plautus  could  not  say  either  ciignus  or  cfignus, 
Frogne  or  Prdgne:  he  wrote  cuclnus  and  Procina.     The  short  vowel 
followed  by  the  two  distinct  consonants  were  an  impossibility  to  his 
and    his    hearers'    ears:    in    Latin   words    he    and  they    knew  only 
si-gnum,  tl-gnum,  co-gnatus,  etc.     Yet  at  the  same  time,  though  he 
knew  only  lahra,  pigri,  while  Horace  and  Ovid  preferred  lahra  and 
'pigri,  Horace  can  write  Donatura  cygni,  Ovid  Ad  mandata  Prognes, 
proving  surely  thereby  the  statement  of  Priscian;    for  their  MSS. 
give  gn  and  not  en,  and  even  if  we  assume  that  they  wrote  en,  gn 
was   always   the   prevailing   spelling   and    therefore    pronunciation. 
And  why  does  Mr  Eoby  overlook  the  fact  I  stated  that  in  inscrip- 
tions of  high  authority,  not  likely  to   err  on  such   points,  Ave  find 
slg7ia,  digna,  the  long  i  implying  that  the  vowels  are  long  by  na- 
ture? we  Hnd  too  regni  and  regno  with  the  apex,  and  Corssen  says  the 
root-vowel  is  short,  though  he  may  be  wrong  in  this.     Ptolemy  gives 


29 

the  name  of  'Vrj^voi.  to  a  people  in  Britain,  "KwyvoL  to  a  people  of 
Germany,  in  both  cases  doubtless  getting  the  names  from  Roman 
sources,  while  two  cities  in  India  he  names  Ko^vaBavha  and  Koymi/- 
hava,  and,  but  for  Latin  influence,  the  short  vowel  would  seem  most 
natural  judging  by  all  analogy.  But  'the  Latin  words  Egnatia, 
Egnatius  occur  not  unfrequently  in  Greek  with  e'.  The  words  are 
no  more  Latin  than  Diognetus,  Poljjgnotus,  Progne,  cygnus:  the  town 
is  Pencetian,  akin  to  Greeks,  not  Latins;  and  Mommsen  tells  us  that 
the  native  name  is  Gnathia,  the  genuine  Latin  form  Gnatia;  and  cer- 
tainly our  two  oldest  authorities  Horace  and  Mela  know  no  other 
form.  If  it  be  affirmed  that  Gnatia  is  Egnatia  with  the  e  dropped,  that 
would  only  strengthen  my  position.  The  Egnatii  were  no  Latins : 
until  after  the  social  war  they  were  always  bitter  enemies  of  Rome. 
I  still  therefore  adhere  to  Priscian  and  to  my  opinion:  and  have  no 
doubt  that  what  has  been  said  of  gn  applies  to  gni  as  well:  agmen, 
t^gmen,  etc.  I  have  much  difficulty  in  perceiving  what  Mi  iljby 
gains  for  his  argument  by  the  fact  that  the  Verona  palimpsest  of 
Livy  (or  any  other  manuscript)  *  always  divides  w^ords  with  gn 
occurring  at  the  end  of  a  line  between  the  g  and  n,  so  as  to  give 
the  g  and  n  to  separate  syllables':  the  'always'  is  self-refuting, 
and  proves,  as  Mommsen  himself  to  whom  he  refers  justly  says,  that 
*  veriloquii  in  talibus  nullam  omnino  rationem  haberi'.  Mr  Roby 
I  feel  sure  will  not  maintain  that  ig  |  nominia  and  ig  \nota  are  ri^^htlv 
divided;  or  that  l-gnominia  and  i-gnota  are  not  unquestionably  true: 
I  should  say  the  same  of  henig  \  nitateni :  heni-gnitateyn  can  alone  be 
correct'.  ne\ glegens  is  equally  absurd  in  the  other  direction. 

The  curious  Latin  Christmas  chant  which  Constantine  Porphyro- 
genitus  has  preserved  for  us,  written  in  Greek  characters  for  Greek 
tongues,  and  handed  down  traditionally  for  generations,  lets  us  see 
that  many  corruptions  had  long  existed  in  the  pronunciation  of  both 
languages,  while  c  had  continued  hard.  One  of  the  verses  is  as 
follows:  KoviJb  KpovKT](f)L^ov<s  icTT  €T  aeTTOvXrov;  ev  rep^ia  Bteppeaov- 
pe^cT,  i.e.  cum  crucifixus  est  et  sepultus,  in  tertia  die  resurrexit: 
here  we  see  that  r]  =  i,  as  in  modern  Greek;  and  ti  =  fi,  as  illustrated 
above  in  p.  21  at  the  end  of  my  Remarks;  but  the  c  of  crucifixus 
is  still  hard.  As  then  Professor  Palmer  in  the  Academy  of  March 
15  informs  us  that  the  majority  of  the  Oxford  Philological  Society 
have  now  decided  that  c,  g  and  t  should  be  sounded  hard  before  all 
vowels  alike,  I  should  have  concluded  that  enouo^h  and  more  than 


30 

eiiuu^ii  'had  iili'jiidy  buuii  said  on  this  head,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
Pt  nil  of  Ely's  article  in  the  Contemporary  Review  for  April,  which 
after  :\  few  general  remarks  is  wholly  devoted  to  the  much  vexed 
L  trill  c.  The  opinions  of  so  eminent  a  scholar  cannot  be  slighted: 
1  siiciil  liiLrciuio  repeat  here  the  greater  part  of  a  letter  of  mine 
wliirii  rqiprrirrMl  in  tl,.  AfMdemy  of  May  1:  it  will  serve  as  a  supple- 
ment to  the  Appendix  lo  my  Remarks. 


:  Let  in.  1h  gill  by  stating  that  the  'one  or  more  persons  of  impul- 
sive temperament'  include  among  others  the  Philological  Society  of 
Oxf  rl  I  rid  the  headmasters  of  the  forty  or  fifty  greatest  schools  in 
J.nuiii  1  Possibly  enough,  as  I  have  always  asserted,  it  may  not  be 
wuith  "11!  while  to  attempt  to  recover  the  utterance  and  intonation 
of  a  ducid  language;  but,  as  I  have  tried  to  show  in  my  printed  re- 
marlcR,  we  have  greater  facilities  in  my  judgment  for  approximating 
tit  ill'  pronunciation  of  old  Latin  than  Dr  Merivale  believes  to  exist. 
We  know  exactly  how  Cicero  or  Quiutilian  did  or  couhl  spell ;  we 
kiiuw  the  syllable  on  which  they  placed  the  accent  of  almost  every 
word:  and  in  almost  every  case  we  already  follow  them  in  this.  I 
have  the  conviction  that  in  their  best  days  that  philological  people 
t.>.k  vast  |t  liiis  to  make  the  writing  exactly  reproduce  the  sounding; 
and  liiat  if  Quui Lilian  or  Tacitus  spelt  a  word  differently  from  Cicero 
ftr  Livv  lip  also  spoke  it  so  far  differently.  With  the  same  amount 
?'f  evidence,  direct  and  indirect,  we  have  for  Latin,  it  would  not  I 
thnik  be  worth  anybody's  while  to  try  to  recover  the  pronunciation 
ui  i  rench  ui  i^]nglish  ;  it  might  I  think  be  worth  his  while  to  try  to 
roonv  ^r  that  of  German  or  Italian,  in  which  sound  and  spelling  accord 
more  nearly  and  accent  obeys  more  determinable  laws. 

But  on  these  general  questions  nobody  will  care  for  what  his 
neiglibuiu  says  or  thinks.  I  proceed  therefore  to  the  special  topic 
of  T)r  ^Trrivale's  paper,  the  pronunciation  of  the  Latin  c,  of  which  he 
wishes  '  to  say  a  few  words  before  the  hour  has  struck  for  fixing  it 
inovocably'.  And  here  I  would  remark  that  he  appears  to  me  to  be 
too  ii  ir.i  iii  Madvig  and  'his  followers',  whose  theory  as  to  the  sound 
of  c  does  not  depart  more  widely  from  our  or  the  Italian  practice 
than  does  Dr  Merivale's  own;  for  he  is  the  only  scholar  of  distinction 


s 


31 

I  ever  heard  of  who  has  maintained  that  the  oil  Creeks  souii  1*  1 
avT\o<;  as  anshlos,  or  that  the  old  Latins  pronounced  exanclare  as 
exaiishlare,  porta  and  porca  as  po7^sha.  Dr  Merivale  puL-  puui  Cicero 
once  again  to  the  question.  He  not  only  says  what  is  true  enough,  tlint 
the  hardness  of  the  Greek  does  not  prove  that  of  the  Latin  c;  ^  n  he 
is  not  sure  that  the  k  was  hard.  I  showed  however  in  t  !•  t|>pendix 
to  my  Remarks  that  deer  was  reproduced  in  Albauian  by  KycKXtpe, 
in  Gorman  by  kicher,  which  allows  I  think  of  a  more  concln>ivp  in- 
ference. This  inference  I  will  try  to  strengthen  here.  Yiv  III  v>  in 
the  instructive  letter  spoken  of  above  tells  us  that  in  W  elsh  c  and  g 
are  always  hard,  whatever  vowel  may  or  once  did  immediately  fulluw 
them.  He  jrives  this  list  of  words  taken  from  the  Latin,  where  c 
precedes  e  or  i:  cella  =  cell,  cera^  cwyr,  ce7'tare  =  certhain,  cingula  — 
cenr/l,  cista  =  cist  and  cest,  cicuta  =  cegid,  civitas  =  ciived,  civitat-is  — 
ciwdod,  cippus  =  cyff,  plur.  cyffion.  In  'inlaut'  Latin  c  regularly  be- 
comes g  in  Welsh:  cancelli  =  ex  gell,  ascendeve  =  esgyn,  descendrre  = 
disgyn,  dejicere  =  diffyg,  locellus  =  llogell,  inaceria  =  inagwyr,  medici- 
na  =  meddyginiaeth,  pascere  =pesgi,  jjraeeeptum  =  pregeth.  '  Welsh 
words  ofive  no  evidence  of  a  hesitation  between  ci  and  //.  ibus  nata- 
licia  is  postulated  by  nadolig\  'It  would  be  useless  to  multiply  in- 
stances, as  there  are  no  exceptions  tending  to  prove  the  Latin  c  to 
have  been  pronounced  soft  before  i  or  e,  excepting  a  few  of  modern 
date.  The  same  argument  maybe  extensively  supported  b)  iii>uaices 
from  the  other  Celtic  languages'. 

Mr  G.  W  Alason  too  of  Morton  Hall  has  sent  me  a  list  of  Wish 
words  derived  directly  from  the  Latin ;  among  them  ceirios  =  cerasus, 
carchar  =  career.  No  one  I  think  will  doubt  that  these  words  were 
taken  directlv  from  the  livinoj  Latin,  as  the  Latin  words  were  from 
the  living  Greek.  Equally  certain  it  is  that  Gothic  karkara  an  1 
German  A'erZ:er  came  directly  from  the  living  Latin,  anl  lirsche  too 
directly  or  indirectly.  Thus  then  the  old  Siceliot  and  Italiot  /cdpKa- 
po?  {KapKapoi'),  career^  carehar,  karkara,  kerker,  were  all  five  sounded 
hard;  or  else  a  soft  Latin  c  reproduced  the  hard  Greek  k.  while  all 
the  three  languages  which  took  the  word  directly  from  the  Latin 
agreed  in  returning  to  the  hard  k  sound,  though  they  all  might  have 
used  sibilants  to  express  it.  Which  h^^pothesis  is  the  more  likely? 
The  argument  is  not  affected  if,  as  "Or  "Merivale  w<  nild  deem  possible, 
Kdp/capo<;  was  pronounced  sarsaros:  K€paao<f,  cerasus,  ceirios,  kirsclie, 
tell  the  same  tale:   klott}  of  Homer  is  in  Latin  cista :    this  same 


32 


83 


word,  borrowed  from  Latin,  reappears  with  hard  c  or  h  in  Welsh  and 
other  Celtic  languages,  in  old  German  and  new  German,  in  Scotch, 
Dutch,  Icelandic,  Swedish  and  Danish,  under  one  or  other  of  these 
forms,  cist,  cest,  cisde,  ciste,  kest,  kista,  kiste,  hist :  compare  too  Caesar^ 
Kalaap,  and  Gothic,  German  and  English,  keisar,  kaiser,  kesar,  etc. 
And  yet,  as  Corssen  shews,  when  the  Germans  borrowed  words  after 
the  Romance  sounds  were  introduced,  they  employed  a  sibilant :  zelle, 
zirkel,  zither. 

Dr  Merivale  casually  opens  his  Propertius  and  finds  that  the  MSS. 
give  cilices  for  silices:  the  MSS.  of  Propertius  are  of  the  late  middle 
ages,  and  from  those  times  1(),()()()  similar  instances  can  be  got.     The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  arscedat  of  Turpilius,  where  the  true  reading 
IS  by  no  means  so  certain  as  Dr  Merivale  seems  to  think  it:  the  best 
MSS.  of  Nonius,  from  whom  the  passage  comes,  belong  to  the  earlier 
middle  ages.     Such  blunders  being  past  numbering  in  post-classical 
tmies,  unless  it  can  be  shewn  that  they  were  usual  in  classical  times, 
my  inference  would  be  the  exact  contrary  of  Dr  Merivale's.     And  so 
with  the  '  fluctuation  so  common  in  our  printed  books  and  MSS.  of  ci 
and  ti  pure',  unless  it  can  be  shewn  that  such  fluctuation  took  place 
in  classical  times;  and  I  flatter  myself  I  can  shew  it  did  not.     And 
here  let  me  express  my  absolute  conviction  that  with  regard  to  the 
words  he  specifies  every  scholar  whose  judgment  is  held  to  be  su- 
preme on  such  points,  such  as  Ritschl,  Mommsen,  Huebner,  Haupt, 
will  at  once  declare  that  the  sole  classical  forms  are  condicio,  contio, 
nwitius,  novicius :  reason,  authority  and  etymology  are  here  at  one! 
Accius  and  Attius,  Mucius  and  Mutius,  may  all  exist,  but  the  dif- 
ferent forms  point  to  different  origins.     Portia  I  know   in   Shake- 
speare, but  only  Porcius  and  Porcia  have  classical  authority ;  and  so 
with  Aehutius,    Caedicius,   Sidpicius,   Itius.     *lt  is  clear  that  both 
writers  and  printers  gave  a  common  pronunciation  to  ci  and  ti  pure\ 
Yes;  but  what  writer  or  printer  before  the  7th  century? 

Dr  Merivale  asks,  *Is  not  porca=  porta,  the  gateway  or  space 
between  two  furrows?  Again,  is  not  porca=:7rlpTc,,  the  pregnant 
sow  or  heifer  V  porcus  then  will  be  the  pregnant  boar.  '  Is  not  Mars 
identical  with  J\Iarcus,  and  accordingly  Jfartius  =  Marcius  T  So  we 
are  to  pronounce,  it  seems.  Marsh  MarMs  Marshiiis,  porsha  porshis. 
a  surmise,  with  some  confidence,  that  if  one  transcriber  wrote  exa7i- 
tlare  and  another  exanclare,  it  was  because  the  word  was  pronounced 
exanshlare.     And  this  too  represented  the  Greek  cli^rXo^  (anshlos)' 


i 


I  have  never  before  known  English;iian,  German,  Frenchman  or 
Italian  go  such  lengths  in  sibilation  as  this.  For  the  first  porca  let 
me  refer  Dr  Alerivale  to  furrow,  furche,  and  Grimm's  law ;  for  the 
second  to  farrow,  farch;  [ferkel,  porcellus),  and  the  same  law.  See 
too  Max  Muller  on  the  Science  of  Language,  vol.  I  p.  296  (6th  ed.): 
'  the  Latin  porca,  a  ridge  between  two  furrows,  is  derived  from  porcus, 
hog;  and  the  Gqyvluxxi  faricha,  furrow,  is  connected  y^ii\\  farah,  boar'. 
Mars  Martis  Martins  are  all  in  rule :  Marcus,  comparing  Mamercus 
and  Tiberius,  I  believe  to  be  a  child  or  favourite  of  Mars ;  and  from 
Marcus  comes  Marcius,  as  from  Quintus  (Quinctus)  comes  Quinctius, 
from  Sextus  Sextius.  But  what  all  this  has  to  do  with  the  sound  of  c 
or  t  I  cannot  conceive.  Ought  a  foreigner  to  maintain  that  the  Jc  has 
an  s  sound  in  Tompkins  and  Wilkins,  because  they  are  etymologically 
connected  with  Thompson  and  Wilson^  Exancidare  and  exanclare 
(anculo,  ancilla)  are  the  sole  classical  forms :  the  word  has  no  more 
concern  with  avT\o<;  than  with  the  German  antlitz,  or  English  antler. 
The  learned  Theban  who  first  wrote  exantlo  wished  to  connect  it 
preposterously  with  Greek  :  perhaps  it  was  he  who  first  discovered 
coeluni  sylva  hyndjres  and  similar  flowers  of  etymology.  Surely  the 
time  is  come  to  discard  such  fancies. 

But  Dr  Merivale  concedes  that  'the  usage  of  the  12th  or  14th 
century  is  not  conclusive  as  to  that  of  any  preceding  one';  and  adds, 
'  we  possess  probably  no  manuscript  authority  which  goes  back  to  the 
classical  or  nearly  to  the  classical  ages '.  Of  Virgil  alone,  or  of  por- 
tions of  him,  we  possess  at  least  six  MSS.  which  go  back  to  late 
classical  times ;  and  every  one  of  them  utterly  repudiates  any  such 
confusion  of  c  and  t — unless,  that  is,  we  are  to  pronounce  ac  and  at  as 
ash  on  the  analogy  of  anshlos;  sic  and  sit  as  sich;  for  these  little 
words  are  occasionally  confused. 

How  can  infitiae  come  from  the  Homeric  dficpaair]  any  more  than 
fateor  and  conjiteor  from  0?;o-/?  Gellius  knew  no  secius :  he  himself 
said  sctius ;  he  or  Varro  seems  to  have  found  sectius  in  a  manuscript 
of  Plautus:  we  are  then  to  pronounce  quinctus  and  quintus  as 
quinshus  on  the  analogy  of  anshlos;  vita  and  victus  as  visha  and 
vishus.  Is  an  extruded  c  before  t  so  foreign  to  Latin  ?  what  of  artus 
fartus  sartus  ?  Of  course  Varro,  hke  everybody  else  before  A.D.  600 
odd,  ^^e\i  jwetiuni  with  a  t',  but  the  jingle  'nunc  prece,  nunc  pretio' 
I  prefer  with  the  sounds  not  entirely  coincident,  i.e.  either  as  we  or 
the  Italians  pronounce  it,  or  as  I  believe  Ovid  and  Horace  pronounced 


I 


34 

it,  'nunc  preke,  nunc  pretio\  I  am  compelled  therefore  to  doubt 
that  it  *  was  doubly  alliterative'.  'Varro'  Dr  Mcrivale  adds  'has  a 
curious  passage  on  the  word  feciales :  quod  fidei  publicae  praeerant ; 
nam  per  hos  fiehat  {i.e.  hi  faciehant)  ut  justum  conciperetur  bellum, 
^i...ni  foedere  fides  pacis  constitueretur :  as  if  to  his  ear  the  d  and  c 
ill  Fidiales,  Foediales,  and  Feciales  had  much  the  same  sound. 
Which  is  the  most  likely ;  that  it  was  the  sound  of  k,  or  of  dh,  th,  or 
sh  V  Let  Dr  Merivale  rest  assured  that  to  Varro,  and  his  countrymen 
for  six  centuries  after  him,  fetiales  was  the  only  known  ^orn\,  feciales 
a  nonentity.  We  have  merely  therefore  to  mediate  between  t  and 
d,  an  easy  enough  feat  in  the  case  of  Varro's  etymologies. 

Dr  Merivale  comes  at   last    'to   the    testimony   of  monumental 
inscriptions  ;  and  about  these  there  can  be  no  misapprehension'.     My 
experience,    alas !     is    widely    different.     He   observes  that  whoever 
glances  over  Orelli's  Corpus   Inscriptionum,  will   find   conditio   and 
condiciOj  statio  and  stacio,  nuntius  and  nuncius,  fetialis  and  fecialis. 
It  is  true  he  will ;  but  let  me  shortly  illustrate  this  point.     Of  all 
these  words  there  is  one  and  only  one  right  spelling — condicio,  statio ^ 
nuntius,  fetialis:  whenever  you  find  in  Orelli  the  wrong  spelling,  it  is 
taken  from  some  old  collector  who  took  it  from  some   one  else,  or 
blindly  followed  the  depraved  spelling  of  his  time ;  and  whenever  a 
competent  observer  can  test  such  spelling,  it  is  found  to  be  a  blunder. 
Thus  in  no.  4132  Orelli  gives  conditione:  Mommsen  has  copied  from 
the  original  and  published  the  same  inscription,  and  reads  condicione : 
'utri  creditis?'     Another  inscription  Orelli  takes  from  Gruter,  Gruter 
from   an    old  and  worthless  authority  Apianus.     Gruter  gives  this 
inscription  twice   over :  once   he  prints  condicione,  three   times  con- 
ditione:  his  authority  Apianus  once  prints  condictionel     All   these 
works  I  have  before  me  at  this  moment.     Did  space  and  patience 
allow,  all  the  other  false  spellings  might  be  routed  in  the  same  way : 
patritius  is  absolutely  without  authority.     It  is  met  with  in  Orelli, 
not  '  often ',  but  in  no.  723 :  this  he  takes  from  Gruter ;  Gruter,  as 
Orelli  remarks,  gives  this  same  inscription  twice :  in  the  one  place  he 
prints  patritios,  in  the  other  patricios  !    Orelli  published  his  collection 
in  1828,  and  we  are  now  in  the  year  of  grace  1871.     'On  the  other 
hand  aedilicius,  sodalicium  are  spelt  with  c':  yes,  and  c  is  alone  right, 
t  wrong  de  facto  and  de  iure.     One  or  two  of  the  names  mentioned 
have  a  double  spelling,  but  also  a  double  etymology ;  but  SulpiciuSy 
Caedicius,  Aebutius,  are  the  only  true  forms.     '  The  inference  seems 


irresistible'.  What  inference?  Surely  this,  that,  while  an  ancient 
stonecutter  could  not  confound  ci  and  ti  pure  because  to  him  the 
sounds  were  totally  different,  a  modern  transcriber,  before  the  quite 
recent  introduction  of  a  real  epigraphical  science,  could  not  be  trusted 
not  to  confound  them  because  the  sounds  were  to  him  the  same. 
Thus  wdth  regard  to  the  just-mentioned  sodalicium  the  accurate  and 
accomplished  Huebner  for  his  new  volume  of  Spanish  inscriptions 
copies  from  the  original  and  prints  sodalicium  in  no.  3730,  while  a 
Spanish  scholar  in  the  year  1760  reads  sodalitium, 

I  marvel  how  Dr  Merivale  could  have  made  all  the  startling 
deductions  he  has  made,  without  refiecting  on  the  countless  chances 
of  error  from  the  carelessness  or  ignorance  or  prejudice  of  transcribers  of 
transcribers,  printers,  correctors,  etc.:  thus  in  the  supplementary  volume 
to  Orelli,  published  by  Henzen,  one  of  the  greatest  of  living  epigra- 
phists,  I  could  scarcely  believe  my  eyes  when  I  saw  in  no.  5438  trihu- 
nitia.  Huebner  however  informs  us  that  Henzen  has  written  to  tell  him 
that  this  is  a  mere  misprint,  the  original  having  of  course  ti^ibu7iicia. 

And  now  we  are  advancing  to  the  final  and  triumphant  climax, 
'  But  of  all  these  monuments  there  is  none  that  comes  to  us  with 
more  authority  both  from  its  age  and  its  authorship,  than  the 
marmor  Ancyranum,  the  inscription  on  which  is  the  undoubted 
composition... of  the  Emperor  Augustus'.  'Now  in  this  inscription 
we  find  the  word  patritius  spelt  with  a  t»  We  find  also  the  two 
forms  tribwiicia  and  tribunitia  once  or  twice  over.  It  is  plain  that  to 
the  ear  of  Augustus  either  form  sounded  alike,  and  he  therefore 
wrote  them  indifferently.  And  so,  if  I  may  rely  on  the  transcript 
given  by  Egger  (Ilistoriens  dJAuguste),  it  would  seem  to  be  absolutely 
demonstrated  that  in  the  best  classical  age  ci  =  ti  pure... and  their 
common  sound,  as  I  have  already  said,  can  only  have  been  a  sibilant, 
jjuch  as  s  or  sh  or  ch\  But  the  transcript  may  not  be  relied  on :  let 
Egger  be  a  warning  not  to  pin  one's  faith  on  the  Reinesii,  Apiani  and 
Gruters  of  old.  For  the  last  six  years  I  have  treasured,  as  one  of  the 
most  precious  works  for  the  study  of  Latin  orthography,  Mommsen's 
elaborate  monograph  on  the  '  Res  gestae  divi  Augusti'.  Every  con- 
ceivable pains  has  been  taken  to  ensure  the  minutest  accuracy,  every 
letter  has  been  studiously  pored  over.  We  find  then  patriciorum 
once,  tribunicius  thrice  :  I  need  not  say  the  t  never  occurs.  Augustus 
cashiered  an  officer  who  wrote  isse  for  ipse.  What  would  he  have 
done  to  one  who  spelt  'patritius  or  tribunitius  ?     At  the  very  least  he 


m 


■«.*,■  ^^ 


» 


36 

;;;;;'i;"';;-  --'  iu,u  u.  k.op  poo,-  .,, ;  l  company.     T^^  Dr  Mcrfvalo 

'^  :'">'■  "V.  n  ,nake  ,t  probal.le  to  me.  that  Divus  Angustus  once 

■;>  i^    :  -ote  ,„  ^,,  l..,,.,,,,.-,,  or  triUunit.po.,  i  u.li  .enonnce  for 

.   ,.    I.:.n.   ,.ni,,grapL3    -.a,,,  enunciation;    T  ,nH  „V  ,,eccavi,  not 

>ecc.  „  , .  I  u  ui  i^romise  to  say  il/a.,/,.  Marshus,  McrMus,  and-  But  no 

1  <  :un..i  |,!o,l,.o  myself  to  pors/w  and  exanshlare. 


Trinity  College  :  September  1871. 


i 


CAM[;iii  f)^;  (.; 


!''^'^'T£D   BV   C.    J.    CLAY,    M.A.   A'l 


r   THK    UNIVKRSITV    PTJKSS. 


